For revolutionizing NMR spectroscopy, Professor Emeritus John S. Waugh has been selected to receive the 2011 Welch Award in Chemistry

Pictured at a luncheon to announce the award on May 12, 2011, from L-R: James L. Kinsey, Chairman, Scientific Advisory Board, The Welch Foundation; Norbert Dittrich, President, The Welch Foundation; John Waugh, MIT, and Ernest Cockrell, Chairman of The Welch Foundation.

Many of the past half century’s discoveries in chemistry, physics, biology and materials science flow in part from John S. Waugh’s pioneering work in nuclear magnetic resonance. His theoretical and experimental breakthroughs revolutionized the field of NMR spectroscopy, one of science’s most powerful and widely used research tools. The Welch Foundation, one of the oldest and largest sources of private funding for basic research in chemistry, honors Dr. Waugh with the $300,000 Welch Award in Chemistry for his contributions to basic research that benefits humankind. More>>

Stubbe honored wth Killian Award

Professor JoAnne Stubbe has been selected to be the Killian Award Lecturer for 2011/12. Each year the James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award Selection Committee chooses one member of the MIT faculty to be the Killian Award Lecturer for the following academic year. The award was established in the spring of 1971 as a permanent tribute to Dr. James R. Killian, Jr., President of the Institute from 1948 to 1959 and Chairman of the MIT Corporation from 1959 to 1971.The purpose of the Award is to recognize extraordinary professional accomplishments by MIT faculty members and to communicate these accomplishments to members of the MIT community. The recipient of the Killian Award holds the title of Killian Award Lecturer for one academic year and during the course of this year presents one or more lectures to the MIT community on his or her own professional activities. The Selection Committee consists of faculty members elected by vote of the Faculty from a slate prepared by the Faculty Nominations Committee.

Institute Professor and Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, John S. Waugh, received the Killian Award in 1988 and the late Professor George H. Buchi received it in 1990.

Mechanistic Studies of Reactions of Peroxodiiron(III) Intermediates in T201 Variants of Toluene o-Xylene Monooxygenase Hydroxylase

Woon Ju Song and Stephen J. Lippard
Biochemistry (2011), online

The Lippard group reports kinetic studies of aromatic hydroxylation by an oxygenated intermediate (T201_peroxo) of toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase hydroxylase. Decay rates of T201_peroxo were monitored in the absence and presence of external (phenol) or internal (tryptophan residue in an I100W variant) substrates by stopped-flow spectrophotometry under pre-steady-state conditions. Three possible reaction pathways were evaluated and only one is consistent with the experimental results. It requires that two oxygenated intermediates, T201_peroxoand ToMOH_peroxo, be in equilibrium, with the latter dominating subsequent reactivity with arenes.