NEW ORLEANS, La., Aug. 22 - Each year the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, honors as "Heroes of Chemistry" men and women whose innovative work - in traditional and nontraditional fields of chemistry - has resulted in commercially successful applications or products. Previous honorees include Stephanie Kwolek, inventor of Kevlar®; Samuel Smith, inventor of ScotchgardTM; and the Mobil-1® Team. This year's honorees will be recognized during the ACS national meeting in New Orleans, August 22-26.
"From the dinner table to the family farm, Americans depend on the innovations in chemistry we are honoring," said ACS President Edel Wasserman. "These 'heroes' make our homes, gardens and food supply healthy, safe and abundant."
Individuals and teams are nominated for the Heroes of Chemistry program by their companies. This year's theme is "Chemical Innovations in Food and Agriculture." Past themes have included petrochemicals, the U.S. space program and environmental chemistry.
The New Orleans meeting will salute this year's honorees on Sunday, August 22, at a private reception and dinner. The keynote speaker will be Peter Barton Hutt, a partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm Covington and Burling, which specializes in food and drug law. Hutt was chief counsel for the Food and Drug Administration from 1971-75.
Heroes of Chemistry 1999
Food
Reduced-fat French fries. Lawrence Carosino, Kenneth Chambliss, Timothy Gerrish and Pong-Kuen Kuo of Hercules Incorporated developed an oil barrier technology used to produce deep-fried, reduced-fat French fries (SlendidTM). Using pectin, a natural substance found in the cell walls of all fruits and some vegetables, this process produces fries with 45% less fat than conventional fries without sacrificing taste, texture or appearance. Other commercial products using this technology include FryshieldTM, used on foods that are dipped in batter before being fried.
Improvement of modified food starches. Carlyle Caldwell of National Starch and Chemical Company pioneered research in carbohydrate and starch chemistry. His efforts laid the groundwork for numerous advances in modified food starches, resulting in the expansion of preserved and frozen foods. Waxy hybrid starches are among the best-selling modified food starches in the processing industry today. They are used worldwide in 10 billion pounds of food each year.
Olestra. Patrick Corrigan of the Procter and Gamble Company designed the manufacturing process used to produce the zero-calorie fat olestra (OleanTM). It is used in such foods as Procter and Gamble's Fat-Free Pringles and Frito Lay's WOW! brand potato chips. In its first year, WOW! achieved over $350 million in sales, making it the most successful new food product of the 1990s.
Agriculture
Imidazolinones. Marinus Los of American Cyanamid Company discovered a new class of herbicides, imidazolinones, which are used in agriculture and forestry to control a broad spectrum of weeds. They attack an enzyme in plants that is not found in either people or animals. Environmentally and user friendly, imidazolinones have reduced the rate of herbicide application up to fifteen-fold since their introduction.
Imidacloprid. Gary Aagesen, Rudiger Altmann, Val Clay, Martin Gruss, Akira Imokawa, Reinhard Lantzsch, Francis McNamara, Hans-Ferdinand Muisers, Achim Noack, Konrad Scholz, Kozo Shiokawa and Schinichi Tsuboi - a team of 12 from the Bayer Group - synthesized the chemical imidacloprid and pioneered the development of chloronicotinyls, a new class of insecticides. The number-one selling insecticide in the world, imidacloprid is widely used to fight pests on agricultural crops (marketed as Admire® and Provado®), on lawns and golf courses (Merit®), and around homes (Premise®); it is also used to control fleas on pets (Advantage®).
Pyridine-based products. Etcyl Blair, Cleve Goring, Howard Johnston, F. John Peskett, Ray Rigterink, Art Sexton and Bill Taplin of Dow conceived of - and conducted - the initial research leading to the development of pyridine chemistry. Pyridine-based products include herbicides, insecticides and nitrogen stabilizers used in agriculture, industry and forestry. Sales of these products exceed $1 billion per year.
Sulfonylureas. George Levitt of DuPont Agricultural Enterprise discovered the sulfonylurea class of herbicides in 1974. Now used on major food crops grown throughout the world, they have enabled farmers to cut herbicide use by 90% without sacrificing effectiveness. Sulfonylureas target an enzyme present in plants but absent in animals.
Doramectin. Stephen Gibson, Alexander Goudie, Edmund Hafner, and Kelvin Holdom of Pfizer Inc. discovered doramectin (Dectomax), an agent used to control internal and external parasites in livestock such as cattle, swine and sheep. Biosynthesized from the soil-dwelling microbe Streptomyces avermitilis, the product ensures optimal animal growth, reduces animal handling and lowers labor costs.
A nonprofit organization with a membership of nearly 159,000 chemists and chemical engineers, the American Chemical Society publishes scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences, and provides educational, science policy, and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. (http://www.acs.org)