The
israel chemical society (ics) prizes will be awarded this week at the opening ceremony of
the annual meeting of the society on Feb. 5. The winners are Moshe Shapiro
from the Weizmann Institute of Science and Sason Shaik from Hebrew
University.
Shaik will receive the
ICS Prize for 2000 for his seminal work in the area of chemical reactivity
and bonding. Shaik is a professor in the department of organic chemistry at
Hebrew University. He was a student of Nicolaos D. Epiotis at the
University of Washington and a postdoctoral fellow under Nobel Laureate
Roald Hoffmann at Cornell University.
Shaik has been a
leading proponent of valence-bond theory and of curve-crossing models to
explain chemical bonding and reactivity. This approach is quite different
from the conventional Woodward-Hoffmann approach, which is based on
molecular orbital theory. Valence-bond theory permits insights into bonding
and reactivity that maybe obscured by the molecular orbital model.
According to colleagues,
he has shaken the world of organic chemistry with his valence-bond view of
electron delocalization in aromatic compounds and made chemists think about
aromatic delocalization in a completely new light. Recently, Shaik has made
innovative contributions to the bonding description of metal oxo species
and on the biological oxidation of hydrocarbons by cytochrome P450.
Chemical
& Engineering News
Copyright © 2001 American Chemical Society
