The Edward E. Smissman Memorial Lecture Series
Edward E. Smissman was born on July 29, 1925, in East St. Louis, Illinois. Upon his graduation from East St. Louis High School in 1941, he enlisted in the United States Coast Guard. After 3 ½ years of service he began his academic training, earning his B.Sc. in 1948 from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1952.
In early 1952, Ed and his wife, Clare, moved from Madison, Wisconsin to Chicago, Illinois where he assumed his first academic position as assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Pharmacy. In 1955, Ed accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin, where he began to build a graduate program in Medicinal Chemistry. Ed’s wide range of scientific interests were evident in the variety of research activities he carried out. He not only continued his doctoral research on the isolation, structural studies, and synthesis of natural products, but also he began working in the area of organic reaction mechanisms and aspects of stereochemistry. While on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, he began his investigations of host-plant-resistance factors which led to the development of his program in insect chemistry. He also initiated his studies of the mechanism and stereochemistry of the Prins reaction and the quasi-Favorskii rearrangement. In addition to these long-range interests, a varity of other problems, including the stereospecific syntheses of Shikimic and quinic acids, were studied. Such diversity of research activity created a stimulating and challenging atmosphere in Ed’s laboratories.
In 1960, Clare and Ed moved to The University of Kansas, where he became professor and chairman of medicinal chemistry. His work in natural products and synthetic chemistry continued, but he became intensely interested in conformational aspects of autonomic receptor sites, and a series of papers began to appear describing work in this area. In 1964, Edward Smissman was named University Distinguished Professor.
Ed was an innovator of interdisciplinary research at The University of Kansas. He had the unique ability to be able to bring together individuals in different disciplines and create an environment of cooperation and creativity. His success in this capacity is demonstrated by the Health Sciences Advancement Award, which the National Institutes of Health granted to The University of Kansas in 1969. This grant, largely the result of Ed’s efforts, eventually resulted in the construction of McCollum Laboratories, a building used as a center of interdisciplinary research at The University of Kansas.
Ed’s energy was limitless, his enthusiasm boundless, and his devotion to his students, colleagues, and science was infinite. He was author or coauthor of over one hundred research publications covering a wide variety of topics in medicinal chemistry. He participated directly in the training of over seventy Ph.D. students, and twenty postdoctorals and influenced the lives of many others. It is impossible to estimate the extent of this influence. He had colleagues and friends all over the world whose lives were enriched by knowing him.
Ed felt a strong responsibility to be active in his professional associations. He served first as vice-chairman and long-range planning committee chairman of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry of the American Chemical Society and became chairman of the Division in 1959. He was general chairman of the Sixth National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium, counselor in the Division of Medicinal Chemistry for many years and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Annual Reports in Medicinal Chemistry, and the American Chemical Society Advances in Chemistry series. He also took an active role in the Medicinal Chemistry Section of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences. In 1972-74, he served as chairman of the IUPAC Committee on the International Education of Medicinal Chemists.
Because of his extraordinary talents as a researcher and teacher, Ed was in great demand as a lecturer and was a frequent speaker at Gordon Conferences, American Chemical Society meetings and Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences meetings. Furthermore, he presented numerous lectures at universities and industrial laboratories all over the world. His comprehensive knowledge of medicinal chemistry also made him attractive as a consultant to industry. In addition, he spent many years as a member of National Institutes of Health study sections and panels.
Edward Smissman died suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday, July 14, 1974. He was not quite forty-nine years old. His qualities as a teacher, a scientist and a human being inspired generations of students and affected all who knew him. His influence will not soon be forgotten. The atmosphere of cooperation and good will which Ed fostered at The University of Kansas will remain as his greatest memorial.
As a lasting tribute to a great man, the Edward E. Smissman Memorial Fund Committee inaugurated in January, 1976, the Edward E. Smissman Memorial Lecture Series. By sponsoring lecturers of outstanding merit and achievement in chemistry and biology, it is hoped that the influence and tradition of Edward E. Smissman will be preserved.The Edward E. Smissman Memorial Lecture is sponsored by: The Department of Medicinal Chemistry, School of Pharmacy,The University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
and The Edward E. Smissman Memorial Fund Kansas University Endowment Association
The drawing of Ed at the top is a reproduction of an original drawing by George Reunitz, the brother of Peter Reunitz, a 1974 graduate of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry.
Lectures
1976 - Sir D.H.R. Barton - Imperial College of Science and Technology
1977 - Julius Axelrod - National Institutes of Health
1979 - Koji Nakanishi - Columbia University
1981 - Pedro Cuatrecasas - Wellcome Research Laboratories
1984 - Carl Djerassi - Stanford University
1986 - Christopher T. Walsh - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1989 - K. Barry Sharpless - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1990 - Jeremy R. Knowles - Harvard University
1992 - Stephen Hanessian - Université de Montréal
1994 - Stephen Benkovic - Pennsylvania State University
1996 - Dieter Seebach - ETH-Zentrum
1998 - Ralph F. Hirschmann - University of Pennsylvania
2000 - Dale L. Boger - The Scripps Research Institute
2002 - Paul S. Anderson - Bristol-Myers Squibb Company
2004 - Dan Rich - University of Wisconsin-Madison
2006 -
Garland R. Marshall - Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, Missouri
