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SMASH/CoSMoS Joint
Dinner Exploring The Deep Oceans, A Source of Intriguing Small Molecules William Fenical
William Fenical (Bill) received his college education in California, all in the field of organic chemistry. After his Ph.D. from UC-Riverside, Bill was employed for one year at the Shell Development Company in Emeryville, CA. After this industrial experience, his interests turned to the development of an academic program in the field of marine natural products chemistry, a new direction accommodating his long-term interest in the ocean. In 1973, Bill joined the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of California, San Diego, where he has resided ever since. Bill is currently Distinguished Professor of Oceanography, and Director of SIO’s Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine. He also holds an appointment within the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science at UCSD and is a full member of the UCSD Comprehensive Cancer Center. Bill’s past interests have involved the chemistry of marine plants and tropical soft-corals, a topic in which he gained a strong appreciation of the roles secondary metabolites play in the chemical defenses of soft-bodied marine plants and animals. More recently, Bill’s interests have focused on the field of marine microbiology and the utilization of marine microorganisms as a source for new drug discovery. His recent discovery that deep ocean muds harbor huge numbers of chemically-prolific actinomycete bacteria is now providing access to an entirely new source of antibiotics and anticancer agents. Bill has co-authored more than 380 papers in these fields and is the recipient of the Paul Scheuer Award in Marine Natural Products Chemistry, (1996), the International Society of Chemical Ecology’s Silver Medal Award (1997), the ACS Ernest Guenther Award in Natural Products Chemistry (2006), and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy (to be given July, 2006). In 2009, Bill was elected as a fellow of the American Association of Science.
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