Donald Tomalia

Last updated

Donald A. Tomalia (born September 5, 1938) is an American chemist who is known as one of the early discoverers of dendrimers.

Biography

Tomalia earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, a master's degree from Bucknell University and a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Michigan State University. He worked at Dow Chemical for many years as a research scientist. In 1979, Tomalia created synthetic particles known as dendrimers, which have been used in nanotechnology and pharmaceuticals. [1]

In 1992, Tomalia founded his own company, Dendritech. The company was purchased by Dow Chemical a few years later. Tomalia was the scientific director of the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology at the University of Michigan Medical School. In 2001, Tomalia started Dendritic NanoTechnologies at Central Michigan University; Starpharma of Australia provided seed money for the venture and Dow took an equity position a few years later. [2]

In 2010, Tomalia founded NanoSynthons, LLC, in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. [3] In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. [4] He has been named a Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate. [5]

Related Research Articles

Richard Smalley American chemist

Richard Errett Smalley was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, a professor at the University of Sussex, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene, also known as buckyballs. He was an advocate of nanotechnology and its applications.

Nanotechnology education learning and teaching related to nanotechnology

Nanotechnology education involves a multidisciplinary natural science education with courses such as physics, chemistry, mathematics and molecular biology. It is being offered by many universities around the world. The first program involving nanotechnology was offered by the University of Toronto's Engineering Science program, where nanotechnology could be taken as an option.

Dendrimer

Dendrimers are highly ordered, branched polymeric molecules. The name comes from the Greek word δένδρον (dendron) which translates to "tree". Synonymous terms for dendrimer include arborols and cascade molecules. Typically, dendrimers are symmetric about the core, and often adopt a spherical three-dimensional morphology. The word dendron is also encountered frequently. A dendron usually contains a single chemically addressable group called the focal point or core. The difference between dendrons and dendrimers is illustrated in the top figure, but the terms are typically encountered interchangeably.

Paul Weiss (nanoscientist)

Paul S. Weiss is a leading American nanoscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He holds numerous positions, including UC Presidential Chair, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Bioengineering, and of Materials Science and Engineering, and founder and editor-in-chief of ACS Nano. From 2019–2014, he held the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences and was the director of the California NanoSystems Institute. Weiss has co-authored over 400 research publications and holds over 40 US and international patents.

Paul Alivisatos is an American scientist of Greek descent who has been hailed as a pioneer in nanomaterials development, and is an internationally recognized authority on the fabrication of nanocrystals and their use in biomedical and renewable energy applications. He is ranked fifth among the world's 100 top chemists in the list released by Thomson Reuters. In 2009, he was named the Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and in 2014 he was named a laureate for the National Medal of Science. In 2016 he was named U.C. Berkeley's Vice Chancellor for Research. As of July 1, 2017, he became University of California, Berkeley's Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, and then acted as Vice Chancellor for Research on an interim basis. In February 2021, he was named the 14th President of the University of Chicago and will assume his role on September 1.

Fraser Stoddart

Sir James Fraser Stoddart is a British-American chemist who is Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry and head of the Stoddart Mechanostereochemistry Group in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University in the United States. He works in the area of supramolecular chemistry and nanotechnology. Stoddart has developed highly efficient syntheses of mechanically-interlocked molecular architectures such as molecular Borromean rings, catenanes and rotaxanes utilising molecular recognition and molecular self-assembly processes. He has demonstrated that these topologies can be employed as molecular switches. His group has even applied these structures in the fabrication of nanoelectronic devices and nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). His efforts have been recognized by numerous awards including the 2007 King Faisal International Prize in Science. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Ben Feringa and Jean-Pierre Sauvage in 2016 for the design and synthesis of molecular machines.

Chad Mirkin

Chad Alexander Mirkin is an American chemist. He is the George B. Rathmann professor of chemistry, professor of medicine, professor of materials science and engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of chemical and biological engineering, and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern University.

Didier Astruc

Didier Astruc carried out his studies in chemistry in Rennes. After a Ph. D. with professor R. Dabard in organometallic chemistry, he did post-doctoral studies with professor R. R. Schrock at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the U.S. and later a sabbatical year with professor K. P. C. Vollhardt at the University of California at Berkeley. He became a CNRS Director of research in Rennes, then in 1983 full Professor of Chemistry at the University Bordeaux 1. He is known for his work on “Electron-Reservoir” complexes and dendritic molecular batteries, catalytic processes using nanoreactors and molecular recognition using gold nanoparticles and metallodendrimers. He is the author of three books, scientific publications and the editor of five books or special issues. He has been a member of the National CNRS committee from 2000 to 2008 and the President of the Coordination Chemistry Division of the Société Française de Chimie from 2000 to 2004. Didier Astruc is on the Thompson-Reuters list of the top 100 chemists who have achieved the highest citation impact scores for their chemistry papers published between 2000 and 2010. and on the list of the Highest Cited Researchers 2015 and 2016 (Thomson-Reuters). and 2017

Paula T. Hammond American chemical engineer

Paula Therese Hammond is a David H. Koch Professor in Engineering and the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her laboratory designs polymers and nanoparticles for drug delivery and energy-related applications including batteries and fuel cells. She is an intramural faculty member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and an Associate Editor of ACS Nano.

Dame Pratibha Laxman Gai-Boyes is a British microscopist and Professor and Chair of Electron Microscopy and former Director at The York JEOL Nanocentre, Departments of Chemistry and Physics, University of York. She created the atomic-resolution environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM) and is an outspoken advocate for women with careers in science.

Teri W. Odom American chemist and materials scientist

Teri W. Odom is an American chemist and materials scientist. She is the Chair of the Chemistry Department, Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry, and a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University. She is also affiliated with International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN), Chemistry of Life Processes Institute (CLP), Northwestern Initiative for Manufacturing Science and Innovation (NIMSI), Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program (IBiS), and Department of Applied Physics.

Omowunmi Sadik Nigerian professor, chemist, and inventor

Omowunmi "Wunmi" A. Sadik is a Nigerian professor, chemist, and inventor working at Binghamton University. She has developed microelectrode biosensors for detection of drugs and explosives and is working on the development of technologies for recycling metal ions from waste, for use in environmental and industrial applications. In 2012, Sadik co-founded the non-profit Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization.

Tan Weihong is a Chinese chemist. He is the University of Florida Distinguished Professor, V. T. and Louise Jackson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida, and also the Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Professor of Biology, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics at Hunan University in China. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015 and The World Academy of Sciences in 2016.

Murali Sastry is an Indian material chemist, nanomaterial scientist and the chief executive officer of IITB-Monash Research Academy. He is a former chief scientist and Tata Chemicals and a former senior scientist at National Chemical Laboratory. He is known for his studies on surfaces, films and materials chemistry and is an elected fellow of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 2002, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Rigoberto Hernandez American chemist and academic (born 1967)

Rigoberto Hernandez is an American chemist and academic. He is The Gompf Family Professor at the Johns Hopkins University and a board member of the American Chemical Society (ACS). Before his appointment at Johns Hopkins, Hernandez spent 20 years as a faculty member at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he became a full professor. In addition to his work as a professor, Hernandez is also the director of the Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity, a program dedicated to creating more diversity in academia.

Anna Christina Balazs is an American materials scientist and engineer. She currently is Distinguished Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and holds the John A. Swanson Chair at the Swanson School of Engineering.

Baratunde A. Cola

Baratunde A. Cola is a scientist and engineer specializing in carbon nanotube technology.

Michael F. Hochella, Jr. is an American geoscientist and currently a University Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) at Virginia Tech and a Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Royal Society of Chemistry, Geochemical Society, European Association of Geochemistry, Mineralogical Society of America, International Association of GeoChemistry, Geological Society of America and American Geophysical Union. His interests are nanogeoscience, minerals, biogeochemistry and geochemistry. Currently among over 18,000 citations, his highest cited first-author paper is Nanominerals, mineral nanoparticles, and earth systems at over 750 citations, and published in the journal Science in 2008, and his highest cited co-authored paper is Nanotechnology in the real world: Redeveloping the nanomaterial consumer products inventory at about 1,400 citations, and published in the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology in 2015, according to Google Scholar. He is a former President of both the Geochemical Society and the Mineralogical Society of America. He is also the Founder and former Director of NanoEarth, a node of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI), an NSF-funded network of 16 centers spread throughout the United States serving as user facilities for cutting edge nanotechnology research. NanoEarth is part of Virginia Tech's Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS), and headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia. Hochella has won many honors, medals, and awards for both research and teaching, including the Dana Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America, the Clair C. Patterson Medal of the Geochemical Society, the Geochemistry Division Medal of the American Chemical Society, and the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award, the highest honor for faculty in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Rosemarie Wesson is the Associate Dean of Research at City College of New York. She was the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan. She has worked at the National Science Foundation, Louisiana State University and Dow Chemical Company.

Raoul Kopelman

Raoul Kopelman is a scientist, inventor, and is currently the Richard Smalley Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry, Physics, Applied Physics, Biophysics, Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Biology at the University of Michigan. Amongst other accomplishments, he is well known for developing the Hoshen-Kopelman algorithm. He was also amongst the first scientists pushing to establish the field of nanotechnology.

References

  1. Halford, Bethany (June 13, 2005). "Dendrimers branch out". Chemical & Engineering News . 83 (24): 30–36. doi:10.1021/cen-v083n024.p030 . Retrieved February 3, 2017.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  2. McCarthy, Alice A. (May 2005). "Dendritic NanoTechnologies, Inc". Chemistry & Biology. 12 (5): 499–501. doi: 10.1016/j.chembiol.2005.05.006 . PMID   15911366.
  3. "Donald A. Tomalia". Science History Institute. 2016-06-29. Retrieved March 21, 2018.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  4. "2016 AAAS Fellows honored for advancing science to serve society". American Association for the Advancement of Science . November 21, 2016. Retrieved February 2, 2017.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  5. "Hall of Citation Laureates" . Retrieved February 3, 2017.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)