Brian M. Hoffman (born August 7, 1941 in Chicago) is an American bioinorganic and physical chemist.
Hoffman is a graduate of Lane Tech High School in Chicago and then studied chemistry at the University of Chicago receiving a bachelor's degree in 1962 and at Caltech with a PhD in chemistry in 1966 under the direction of Harden M. McConnell. Hoffman was briefly a postdoctoral scholar with Alexander Rich at MIT. In 1967 he started his appointment at Northwestern University, where he has remained throughout his career.
Using electron-nuclear double-resonance (ENDOR) spectroscopy, Hoffman has investigated many enzyme mechanisms. [1] Subject of this work include nitric oxide synthase, cytochrome P450, nickel-iron hydrogenase, and nitrogenase. [2]
In 2012, he received the Joseph Chatt Award, in 2013 the F. A. Cotton Medal. He also received the Bruker Award [3] He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2006), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2002) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1983). He was a Sloan Fellow.
Nitrogenases are enzymes (EC 1.18.6.1EC 1.19.6.1) that are produced by certain bacteria, such as cyanobacteria (blue-green bacteria). These enzymes are responsible for the reduction of nitrogen (N2) to ammonia (NH3). Nitrogenases are the only family of enzymes known to catalyze this reaction, which is a key step in the process of nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen fixation is required for all forms of life, with nitrogen being essential for the biosynthesis of molecules (nucleotides, amino acids) that create plants, animals and other organisms. They are encoded by the Nif genes or homologs. They are related to protochlorophyllide reductase.
Frank Henry Westheimer was an American chemist. He taught at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1954, and at Harvard University from 1953 to 1983, becoming the Morris Loeb Professor of Chemistry in 1960, and Professor Emeritus in 1983. The Westheimer medal was established in his honor in 2002.
Richard Neil Zare is the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor in Natural Science and a Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. Throughout his career, Zare has made a considerable impact in physical chemistry and analytical chemistry, particularly through the development of laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and the study of chemical reactions at the molecular and nanoscale level. LIF is an extremely sensitive technique with applications ranging from analytical chemistry and molecular biology to astrophysics. One of its applications was the sequencing of the human genome.
Harry Barkus Gray is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology.
Herbert Sander Gutowsky was an American chemist who was a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Gutowsky was the first to apply nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods to the field of chemistry. He used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine the structure of molecules. His pioneering work developed experimental control of NMR as a scientific instrument, connected experimental observations with theoretical models, and made NMR one of the most effective analytical tools for analysis of molecular structure and dynamics in liquids, solids, and gases, used in chemical and medical research, His work was relevant to the solving of problems in chemistry, biochemistry, and materials science, and has influenced many of the subfields of more recent NMR spectroscopy.
Robert George Bergman is an American chemist. He is Professor of the Graduate School and Gerald E. K. Branch Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.
Daniel George Nocera is an American chemist, currently the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2006 he was described as a "major force in the field of inorganic photochemistry and photophysics". Time magazine included him in its 2009 list of the 100 most influential people.
Graham R. Fleming is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and member of the Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute based at UCB.
Stephen James Lippard is the Arthur Amos Noyes Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is considered one of the founders of bioinorganic chemistry, studying the interactions of nonliving substances such as metals with biological systems. He is also considered a founder of metalloneurochemistry, the study of metal ions and their effects in the brain and nervous system. He has done pioneering work in understanding protein structure and synthesis, the enzymatic functions of methane monooxygenase (MMO), and the mechanisms of cisplatin anticancer drugs. His work has applications for the treatment of cancer, for bioremediation of the environment, and for the development of synthetic methanol-based fuels.
Professor Edward I. Solomon is the current Monroe E. Spaght Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University. He is an elected member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been profiled in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has also been a longtime collaborator with many scientists, including Professor Kenneth D. Karlin at Johns Hopkins University.
Frank Neese is a German theoretical chemist at the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research. He is the author of more than 440 scientific articles in journals of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Physics. His work focuses on the theory of magnetic spectroscopies and their experimental and theoretical application, local pair natural orbital correlation theories, spectroscopy oriented configuration interaction, electronic and geometric structure and reactivity of transition metal complexes and metalloenzymes. He is lead author of the ORCA quantum chemistry computer program. His methods have been applied to a range of problems in coordination chemistry, homogeneous catalysis, and bioinorganic chemistry.
Thomas C. Bruice was a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at University of California, Santa Barbara. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1974. He was a pioneering researcher in the area of chemical biology, and is one of the 50 most cited chemists.
Younan Xia is a Chinese-American chemist, materials scientist, and bioengineer. He is the Brock Family Chair and Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) Eminent Scholar in Nanomedicine in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, with joint appointments in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry, the School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, and Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering & Bioscience at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Gordon G. Hammes is a distinguished service professor of biochemistry, emeritus, at Duke University, professor emeritus at Cornell University, and member of United States National Academy of Sciences. Hammes' research involves the study of enzyme mechanisms and enzyme regulation.
Geraldine Lee Richmond is an American chemist and physical chemist who is President Joe Biden's nominee to serve as Under Secretary of Energy for Science in the US Department of Energy. Richmond is the Presidential Chair in Science and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oregon (UO). She conducts fundamental research to understand the chemistry and physics of complex surfaces and interfaces. These understandings are most relevant to energy production, atmospheric chemistry and remediation of the environment. Throughout her career she has worked to increase the number and success of women scientists in the U.S. and in many developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America. Richmond has served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and she received the 2013 National Medal of Science.
Bernard Lucas Feringa is a Dutch synthetic organic chemist, specializing in molecular nanotechnology and homogeneous catalysis. He is the Jacobus van 't Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences, at the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry, University of Groningen, Netherlands, and an Academy Professor of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Jean-Pierre Sauvage, "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines".
Mei Hong is a Chinese-American biophysical chemist and Professor of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is known for her creative development and application of solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR) spectroscopy to elucidate the structures and mechanisms of membrane proteins, plant cell walls, and amyloid proteins. She has received a number of recognitions for her work, including the American Chemical Society Nakanishi Prize in 2021, Günther Laukien Prize in 2014, the Protein Society Young Investigator award in 2012, and the American Chemical Society’s Pure Chemistry award in 2003.
Serena DeBeer is an American chemist. She is currently a W3-Professor and the director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Muelheim an der Ruhr, Germany, where she heads the Department of Inorganic Spectroscopy. Her expertise lies in the application and development of X-ray based spectroscopic methods as probes of electronic structure in biological and chemical catalysis.
Majed Chergui is a Swiss and French physicist specialized in ultrafast dynamics of light-induced processes. He is a professor at EPFL, head of the Laboratory of Ultrafast Spectroscopy at EPFL's School of Basic Sciences, and founding director of the Lausanne Centre for Ultrafast Science (LACUS).
R. David Britt is the Winston Ko Chair and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Davis. Britt uses electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy to study metalloenzymes and enzymes containing organic radicals in their active sites. Britt is the recipient of multiple awards for his research, including the Bioinorganic Chemistry Award in 2019 and the Bruker Prize in 2015 from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He has received a Gold Medal from the International EPR Society (2014), and the Zavoisky Award from the Kazan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2018). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Royal Society of Chemistry.