Awards & Winners

Ronald Breslow

Date of Birth 14-March-1931
Place of Birth Rahway
(United States of America, New Jersey, Union County)
Nationality United States of America
Profession Scientist, Chemist
Ronald C. D. Breslow is an American chemist from Rahway, New Jersey. He is currently University Professor at Columbia University, where he is based in the Department of Chemistry and affiliated with the Departments of Biological Sciences and Pharmacology; he has also been on the faculty of its Department of Chemical Engineering. He has taught at Columbia since 1956 and is a former chair of the university's chemistry department. He is interested in the design and synthesis of new molecules with interesting properties, and the study of these properties. Examples include the cyclopropenyl cation, the simplest aromatic system and the first aromatic compound prepared with other than six electrons in a ring. His seminal contributions concerning the mechanism of the vitamin B1 catalyzed benzoin condensation and the rate enhancement gained by performing organic transformations on water, among many others, sparked new avenues of chemical research. Breslow earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where his doctoral advisor was R. B. Woodward. Among Breslow's former Ph.D. students is Robert Grubbs, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005, and Doug La Follette, Secretary of State of Wisconsin.

Awards by Ronald Breslow

Check all the awards nominated and won by Ronald Breslow.

1991


National Medal of Science for Chemistry
(For his incisive work on enzyme mimics that has built bridges between chemistry and biochemistry, and for his seminal work on novel conjugated molecules and a new class of anticancer agents.)

1989


NAS Award in Chemical Sciences
(For his imaginative invention of novel synthetic methods, his enunciation of the mechanism of enzyme reactions, and his development of systems that mimic enzyme activity.)