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Chemistry professor makes two ‘firsts’ in winning Howe honor
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by Joanna Pliner
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
With National Chemistry Week underway, a University of Wisconsin chemistry professor accomplished a set of firsts when she was awarded the 2005 Harrison Howe Award.
Laura Kiessling is the first UW faculty member to win the award — given annually to scientists with outstanding contributions to the field of chemistry — and is also the first woman to win the award based on her solo efforts.
According to a university release, the only other woman to win the award shared it with her husband in 1947.
"She is one of the most creative people I've ever met — incredibly insightful, very energetic and a bold scientist," said Sam Gellman, a UW chemistry professor who has worked with Kiessling in the past.
Gellman said Kiessling's honor makes it clear UW is doing a better job of attracting proficient scientists as time goes on, but added the state Legislature fails to recognize that fact.
Dedicating much of her time to embryonic stem-cell research, Kiessling has worked with James Thomson, the first person to successfully isolate human embryonic stem cells.
Gellman singled out the contentious scientific issue as one that should be better funded by the Legislature.
"The support from the state is not what it could be," Gellman said. "It just seems ironic that these developments that offer so much promise for UW-Madison … are really being called into question by the Legislature."
UW chemistry professor emeritus Charles Casey added the award is particularly honorable because the American Chemical Society judges by the same standards as the Nobel Prize committees.
Casey noted it is too early to make assertions about Kiessling winning the Nobel Prize but said she is definitely in the running.
Aside from stem-cell research, Kiessling also focused her research largely on understanding the role of carbohydrates in biological systems, Casey added.
Kiessling's research focuses on transmission of information between cells, which Casey said is important to understanding the way the human body responds to injury.
"The basic understanding of how cells interact is crucial," he said.
Casey added Kiessling found out in September that she also won the 2007 American Chemical Society Francis M. Garvan-John P. Olin Award, which she will receive at the next ACS meeting.
The Rochester section of the American Chemical Society distributes the Harrison Howe Award. Kiessling was not available for comment as of press time.
