Paul Hergenrother, the Rinehart Professor of Chemistry, appears on the list of UIUC University Scholars named this year. Now in its 29th year, the University Scholars program recognizes excellence and provides $15,000 each year for three years to use to enhance each Scholar's academic career. To be eligible, faculty members must be Associate Professors or Full Professors no more than 4 years in rank, and must have stellar records in both research and teaching; only about a dozen faculty members total among the three U of I campuses are named University Scholars each year. Paul joins a long list of current and former Chemistry Professors who have received this honor, including Ben McCall, Wilfred van der Donk, Yi Lu, Nancy Makri, Martin Gruebele, Jonathan Sweedler, Eric Oldfield, Andy Gewirth, Ken Suslick, Walter Klemperer, Greg Girolami, John Katzenellenbogen, Tom Rauchfuss, and Scott Denmark.
Professor Hergenrother received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Notre Dame in 1994. He went on to the University of Texas at Austin and obtained his Ph.D. in 1999; during this time Paul was the recipient of an American Chemical Society graduate student fellowship and the Roche Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry. After an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University, he joined the faculty at Illinois in 2001. His research interests are in the areas of synthetic organic chemistry, chemical biology, and biochemistry. The overarching goal of his research is to use small organic compounds to identify novel cellular targets that can be exploited in the treatment of diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration, and drug-resistant bacteria. In addition, he and his research group works closely with the local medical community to perform tests directly on patient samples. Paul has identified compounds that directly induce programmed cell death in a variety of cancer cells; one of these compounds, called PAC-1, is rapidly progressing toward a clinical trial in human cancer patients. He also has made significant advances in the fight against drug-resistant bacteria.
Paul has received numerous awards for his research, including being named an American Cancer Society Research Scholar, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar, and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow, and receiving the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry and the David Robertson Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry from the American Chemical Society, the GlaxoSmithKline Chemistry Scholar Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Research Corporation Research Innovation Award, and an NSF-CAREER Award. In addition, he was named to Technology Review magazine's list of top innovators under age 35, and has received an Excellence in Teaching Award from the UIUC School of Chemical Sciences.
Partially excerpted from an email by Gregory Girolami
UIUC News Bureau announcement