“Computation and Experiment: Collaborations for Chemical and Biochemical Discovery”
On Saturday, October 26, 2013,
the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
awarded the 2013 Glenn T. Seaborg Medal to
Kendall N. Houk, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, Saul Winstein Chair
in Organic Chemistry, UCLA
Many thanks to our generous donors
who made this event possible!
2013 Seaborg Symposium Program
Miguel A. Garcia-Garibay, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Welcoming Remarks
Neil K. Garg, Ph.D.
Professor and Vice Chair, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Session I Co-Chair
Anastassia N. Alexandrova, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Session I Co-Chair
Robert H. Grubbs, Ph.D.
2005 Nobel Prize Recipient, Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry, California Institute of Technology
“Design and Applications of Selective Olefin Metathesis: The Interplay of Theory and Experiments”
William L. Jorgensen, Ph.D.
Sterling Professor of Chemistry, Director, Division of Physical Sciences & Engineering, Yale University
“Drug Discovery Accelerated by Computational Methods”
Paul A. Wender, Ph.D.
Bergstrom Professor of Chemistry, Stanford University
“30 Years with Ken: New Reactions, the Ideal Synthesis & Transformative Therapies”
David S. Eisenberg, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Director, UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics & Proteomics, Paul D. Boyer Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Session II Chair
Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Ph.D.
T.Z. and Irmgard Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at UC Berkeley, HHMI Investigator, and Senior Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
“Bioorthogonal Chemistry: From Mechanism to Organism”
David Baker, Ph.D.
Professor of Biochemistry, University of Washington, HHMI Investigator
“Challenges in Enzyme Design”
Ken N. Houk, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry, Saul Winstein Chair in Organic Chemistry, UCLA
“Computations, Collaborations, and the Distortion/Interaction Model of Biomolecular Reactivity”
Kendall N. Houk Biography
Kendall (Ken) N. Houk received A.B., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard, working with R. B. Woodward as a graduate student in the area of experimental tests of orbital symmetry selection rules. He taught at Louisiana State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and UCLA since 1986. From 1988-1990, he was Director of the Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation. He was Chairman of the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 1991-1994, and became the Saul Winstein Chair in Organic Chemistry in 2009.
Professor Houk is an authority on theoretical and computational organic chemistry, beginning as an experimental organic chemist and now on the forefront of the application of computation and theory to understand and predict chemical and biological reactivity. He collaborates prodigiously with chemists all over the world and has published nearly 900 articles and given named lectures throughout the United States.
Among his honors are the von Humboldt Foundation U.S. Senior Scientist Award, and Arthur C. Cope Scholar, James Flack Norris Award in Physical Organic Chemistry, Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences Award, the Tolman Medal, and the Arthur C. Cope Award, all from the American Chemical Society. He was awarded the Schrödinger Medal of the WATOC, the Faculty Research Lectureship at UCLA, the Bruylants Chair from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium, the Dr. rer. nat. h. c. from the University of Essen, Germany, an Erskine Fellowship in New Zealand, a Lady Davis Fellow at the Technion in Haifa, Israel, a JSPS Fellow in Japan and this year won the Robert Robinson Award of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences. He has been named as Fellow of the AAAS, WATOC, ACS, and RSC.
Professor Houk has served on the boards of a variety of funding agencies and journals, including NIH Study Sections and the PRF Advisory Board. He was Chair of the Chemistry Section of the AAAS, and is now a Senior Editor of Accounts of Chemical Research. He was Director of the UCLA Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program from 1999 until 2011, and is a member of the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute and California NanoSystems Institute.
Our Donors
Many thanks to the generous donors whose contributions make the 2013 Glenn T. Seaborg Symposium and Medal Dinner possible
(in alphabetical order):
Our Corporate Donors
Our Individual Donors
Edward Aitken
Anne Andrews
Jim Bowie
Steve & Cathy Clarke
Miguel Garcia-Garibay & Beatriz Ruiz Silva
William & Nina Gelbart
Ken Houk & Robin Garrell
Grazyna Orzechowska
Emil & Hanna Reisler
Arlene & Christopher Russell
Jeff Schwartzmann
Sharlene Weatherwax
Recorded videos from the event
Symposium Photos
Medal Dinner Photos
On Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013, a poster session was held as part of the 2013 Seaborg Symposium. The two categories of posters, undergraduate chemistry & postdoc/graduate chemistry, were judged separately. The winners were announced by Dean Joseph Rudnick (center) at the evening banquet and awards ceremony.
