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The School of Molecular Sciences is an academic unit of The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). The School of Molecular Sciences (SMS) is responsible for the study and teaching of the academic disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry at ASU.
Chemistry instruction at ASU can be traced back to the early 1890s. At that time, the educational institution, a Normal School for the Territory of Arizona, “acquired...a supply of chemicals” for instructional purposes. [1] Chemistry classes were held in Old Main during the late 1800s and into the early 1900s, taught by Frederick M. Irish. [2]
In 1927, President Arthur John Matthews hired George Bateman, the first faculty to hold a PhD who was not also a principal or president of the school. [3] Bateman taught chemistry classes, among other things, for forty years. He oversaw the development of the physical sciences at ASU, including new science facilities and degrees. [1]
In 1946, new majors leading to degrees were added, including Physical and Biological Science. In 1947 the State of AZ designated $525,000 for a new science building. [1]
In 1953 the first college, the College of Arts and Sciences was established with 14 departments. [1] In 1954 Arizona State College was restructured into 4 colleges, which went into effect in the 1955–56 academic year: the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Education, the College of Applied Arts and Sciences, and the College of Business and Public Administration.
In 1957, the Department of Chemistry first appeared in the Arizona State College Bulletin [4] (Vol. LXXII No. 2, April 1957), listed under the Division of Physical Sciences. Early chemists, such as LeRoy Eyring helped build ASU's strong science reputation; Roland K. Robins conducted cancer research as early as 1957. [2]
In 1958, Arizona State College was renamed Arizona State University. Chemistry was the first department to be approved to offer a doctoral degree.
In 1960, George Boyd, the university's first coordinator of research, helped secure a portion of Harvey H. Nininger’s meteorites for ASU, making it the largest university-based meteorite collection in the world. [2] [5]
In 1961, Geochemist Carleton B. Moore became the first director of the Center for Meteorite Studies, [6] [7] which at the time was housed in the Department of Chemistry. [7]
In 1963, Peter R. Buseck, who pioneered high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) research on meteorites and terrestrial minerals. [8]
In 1963, ASU awarded its first doctoral degrees to four students, one of whom, Jesse W. Jones, was the first Chemistry PhD of ASU and the first African American to earn a PhD at ASU. [9] Jones went on to teach chemistry at Baylor University for over 30 years. [10] [11]
In 1965 Robert Pettit was hired and began developing marine-organism research that led to the creation of anti-cancer drugs and, in 1973, what became the Cancer Research Institute. [2] Pettit taught at ASU until his retirement in 2021. [12]
In 1967, George Bateman, after enjoying a productive forty-year career at ASU, retired. The Bateman Physical Sciences Complex was named to honor his many contributions and years of service in 1977. [1]
In 1992 the Department of Chemistry was renamed the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
In 2015 the department became the School of Molecular Sciences to recognize the fact that modern chemical science has impact well beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of chemistry and biochemistry. Rather than being discipline-based, the school's mission is to tackle important societal problems in medicine, technology, energy and the environment from an atomic and molecular perspective.
The administrative offices of the School of Molecular Sciences are located within the Bateman Science Complex on ASU's Tempe campus. Faculty labs are located in the Bateman Complex, in the Biodesign Institute, and the ISTB1 and ISTB5 buildings.
Research in the School of Molecular Sciences is organized around six themes:
Arizona State University is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 as Territorial Normal School by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is now one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States. It was one of about 180 "normal schools" founded in the late 19th century to train teachers for the rapidly growing public common schools. Some closed, but most steadily expanded their role and became state colleges in the early 20th century, then state universities in the late 20th century.
Philip Russel Christensen is a geologist whose research interests focus on the composition, physical properties, processes, and morphology of planetary surfaces, with an emphasis on Mars and the Earth. He is currently a Regents' Professor and the Ed and Helen Korrick Professor of Geological Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU).
Dante S. Lauretta is a professor of planetary science and cosmochemistry at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He is the principal investigator on NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission.
Richard Henderson is a British molecular biologist and biophysicist and pioneer in the field of electron microscopy of biological molecules. Henderson shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017 with Jacques Dubochet and Joachim Frank. "Thanks to his work, we can look at individual atoms of living nature, thanks to cryo-electron microscopes we can see details without destroying samples, and for this he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry."
The Watts College of Public Service & Community Solutions is one of the 24 independent school units of Arizona State University. It is located at ASU's Downtown Phoenix Campus in Arizona. Founded in 1979, the college awards bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees and is organized into four schools and 17 research centers. The programs are divided amongst the School of Social Work, the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, the School of Public Affairs and the School of Community Resources and Development.
The Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies was founded in 1960, on the Tempe Campus of Arizona State University, and houses the world's largest university-based meteorite collection. The collection contains specimens from over 1,600 separate meteorite falls and finds, and is actively used internationally for planetary, geological and space science research. The Center also operates a meteorite museum which is open to the public.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU is the largest of the 17 independent school units at Arizona State University. Students majoring in The college make up 31 percent of all Tempe campus students.
The history of Arizona State University began March 12, 1885 with the founding of the establishment originally named the Territorial Normal School at Tempe. The school was founded after John Samuel Armstrong first introduced House Bill 164, “An Act to Establish a Normal School in the Territory of Arizona” to the 13th Legislative Assembly of the Arizona Territory. Instruction was instituted on February 8, 1886, under the supervision of Principal Hiram Bradford Farmer. Land for the school was donated by Tempe residents George and Martha Wilson, allowing 33 students to meet in a single room.
Joseph Stewart Fruton, born Joseph Fruchtgarten, was a Polish-American biochemist and historian of science. His most significant scientific work involved synthetic peptides and their interactions with proteases; with his wife Sofia Simmonds he also published an influential textbook, General Biochemistry. From 1970 until his death, Fruton worked extensively on the history of science, particularly the history of biochemistry and molecular biology.
Vern L. Schramm is a professor and Ruth Merns Chair in Biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Schramm was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. His laboratory's research focuses on the elucidation of enzymatic mechanisms and transition state structure.
Kenneth B. Storey is a Canadian scientist whose work draws from a variety of fields including biochemistry and molecular biology. He is a Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Chemistry at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Storey has a world-wide reputation for his research on biochemical adaptation - the molecular mechanisms that allow animals to adapt to and endure severe environmental stresses such as deep cold, oxygen deprivation, and desiccation.
Charles Austen Angell was a renowned Australian and American physical chemist known for his prolific and highly cited research on the chemistry and physics of glasses and glass-forming liquids. He was internationally recognized as a luminary in the fields of glasses, liquids, water and ionic liquids.
Laurie Leshin is an American scientist and academic administrator serving as the 10th Director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and as Vice President and Bren Professor of Geochemistry and Planetary Science at California Institute of Technology. Leshin's research has focused on geochemistry and space science. Leshin previously served as the 16th president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS), is a joint venture of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. It offers Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in many areas of study, and a M.D./Ph.D. program in collaboration with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, and it is fully accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools through both its parent institutions, UTHealth and MD Anderson. It is located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center.
Meenakshi Wadhwa is a planetary scientist and educator who studies the formation and evolution of the Solar System through the analysis of planetary materials including meteorites, Moon rocks and other extraterrestrial samples returned by spacecraft missions. She is director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.
Alfred William Rutherford is Professor and Chair in Biochemistry of Solar energy in the Department of Life sciences at Imperial College London.
Catherine (Cathy) Drennan is an American biochemist and crystallographer. She is the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Biochemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a professor at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Peter R. Buseck is a Regents Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences (SMS) at Arizona State University (ASU). He is a pioneering researcher in the application of transmission electron microscopy to mineralogy, meteoritics, fullerenes and atmospheric chemistry. In 2019 Buseck was awarded the Roebling Medal, the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America. The scientific journal Nature recognized Buseck's 1978 paper as a milestone in crystallography.
Carleton B. Moore was an Emeritus Regents Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences (SMS) and the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University (ASU). He was a pioneering researcher in the field of meteorite studies, and the founding Director of the ASU Center for Meteorite Studies, which houses the world’s largest university-based meteorite collection. Moore is credited with being the first scientist to detect carbon in lunar samples returned by the Apollo astronauts and he was also one of the researchers credited with identifying the first extra-terrestrial amino acids in a meteorite. Both an asteroid, 5046 Carletonmoore in 1981, and a mineral, carletonmooreite in 2021, were named in honor of his contributions to meteorite research.
George Robert Pettit II was a Regents’ Professor in Chemistry in the School of Molecular Sciences (SMS) at Arizona State University. He was an internationally renowned and respected researcher in the field of natural anticancer compounds throughout his career of over six decades. Pettit has been honored by the International Cancer Advocacy Network, the American Society of Pharmacognosy, and Washington State University, his alma mater. A special edition of the Journal of Natural Products is dedicated to Pettit, and the French journal Médicine Sciences paid tribute to him. Pettit’s achievements earned him the designation of Outstanding Investigator by the United States National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute (NCI). Pettit and his impact on the field of anti-cancer compounds are the subject of the book, “Waging War on Cancer.”
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