Mathias P. Mertes Memorial Lecture Series
Dr. Scott Miller
Chair, Department of Chemistry at Yale University
Biography
Scott J. Miller was born on December 11, 1966 in Buffalo, NY. He received his B.A. (1989), M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1994) from Harvard University, where he worked with David Evans as a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellow. Subsequently, he traveled to the California Institute of Technology where he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow with Robert Grubbs until 1996. For the following decade, he was a member of the faculty at Boston College, until joining the faculty at Yale University in 2006. In 2008, he was appointed as the Irénée du Pont Professor of Chemistry.
Professor Miller’s research program focuses on asymmetric catalysis. His group employs strategies that include catalyst design, the development of techniques for catalyst screening, and the application of new catalysts to the preparation of biologically active agents. Several current interests are (a) the selective functionalization of complex molecules, (b) the exploration of analogies between synthetic catalysts and enzymes, (c) the discovery of effective antibiotics despite increasing resistance, and (d) the engineering of the biosynthetic apparatus for nonextant bond-formation.
Scott Miller’s awards and honors include: National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1999), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2000), Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (2000), Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the American Chemical Society (2004), Yoshimasa Hirata Memorial Gold Medal of Nagoya University (2009), National Institutes of Health MERIT Award (2011), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2016), Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2016), Max Tishler Prize, Harvard University (2017), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2018), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship for Research (2019), Member, National Academy of Sciences (2020).
Professor Miller has served in number of capacities for public and private organizations. For example, he recently completed a term on the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Advisory Council, convened by the Director of the National Institutes of Health. He now serves as Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of Organic Chemistry.
Lectures
Previous Mertes Memorial Lecturers
About Mathias P. Mertes
Mathias P. Mertes was born in Chicago on April 22, 1932. He was raised in Chicago and prepared early for a career in pharmacy, having delivered prescription drugs on his bicycle for his father's neighborhood pharmacy. He received a B.S. degree in pharmacy from the University of Illinois in 1954. Because of a keen interest in research he entered graduate school at the University of Texas, where he received an M.S. degree in medicinal chemistry with C. O. Wilson in 1956. He subsequently earned a Ph.D. degree with Ole Gisvold from the University of Minnesota in 1960. Upon completion of his Ph.D., Matt accepted a position at the University of Kansas as an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry. There he joined Ed Smissman, who had just moved to Kansas as Chair of medicinal chemistry, and who had been an undergraduate instructor of Matt's at the University of Illinois. Matt advanced rapidly in his career, reaching the rank of Professor in 1968. Together, Matt and Ed Smissman built a strong and vigorous department and established many traditions that still persist to this day. Matt continued this legacy after Ed's death in 1974, serving as Chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry from 1974-1975.
As a teacher Matt was extremely dedicated, being popular with graduate and undergraduate students alike. He won several teaching awards, including the University of Kansas EXXON Award in 1986 and the Rho Chi Teaching Award presented by students of the School of Pharmacy. Matt was also a finalist for the prestigious H.O.P.E. (Honor for the Outstanding Progressive Educator) Award, an award given annually by the University's senior class. He was also one of the pioneers in advocating and providing continuing education for practicing pharmacists in Kansas, participating with great enthusiasm in continuing education seminar trips around the state. He was also one of the founders of the highly successful medicinal chemistry meeting-in-miniature known affectionately as the MIKI meeting. Since 1963, this meeting has been held annually on a rotating basis among the Universities of Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Illinois.
As a research scholar Matt's interests varied widely. They included: 1) development of methodology for the synthesis of nucleoside, nucleotide, and nucleic acid analogs, 2) studies on thymidylate synthetase model systems and reaction mechanisms including the design and synthesis of thymidylate synthetase inhibitors, 3) the design, synthesis and evaluation of glutamate receptor probes that discriminate between glutamate receptor subtypes, and 4) with his wife, Kristin, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Kansas, polyammonium macrocycle synthesis, ligand complexation, and mechanism of catalysis of formyl phosphate and ATP hydrolysis. Matt received an NIH Career Development Award (1967-72) enabling him to spend one year in the laboratory of F. Sorm at the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences in Prague (nucleic acid chemistry). He also spent six months at the University of Colorado studying in vitro mRNA translation. In 1983, he and Kristin spent a sabbatical in the laboratory of 1987 Nobel laureate Jean-Marie Lehn at Strasbourg. During his career Matt published over 100 scientific papers and directed 23 graduate students to the Ph.D. degree, in addition to training five M.S. students and a number of postdocs. Matt served as Chair of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society in 1978, as Vice-chair in 1977, and served on the Division's membership, long-range planning and membership directory committees. He also served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Nucleosides and Nucleotides. His service also included a four-year term on the Medicinal Chemistry A Study Section at NIH and another four-year term on the NIH Biomedical Research Support Committee.
After Matt's untimely death from a heart attack on Thursday, April 6, 1989, Frances Degan Horowitz, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies at Kansas, remarked, "He was always available to help on projects that transcended his lab, his department, his school and his adopted state. He did all this with personal grace, with uncommon gentleness and with generous spirit. Such personal qualities ensure that our memories of an exceptional friend and colleague will remain vivid, inspiring and enduring."
The Mathias P. Mertes Memorial Fund was established by the University of Kansas Endowment Association with contributions from his family, friends, colleagues, students and co-workers to memorialize Matt's dedication to excellence in research and scholarship through a student-initiated lecture series.