Debbie C. Crans

Debbie C. Crans is a professor of Organic, Inorganic and Biological Chemistry and of Cell and Molecular Biology at Colorado State University, where she also is a Professor Laureate of the College of Natural Sciences. Crans specializes in the fundamental chemistry and biochemistry of drugs, with particular focus on vanadium and other transition metal ions as metals in medicine and investigation of their mechanisms of toxicity. She then moved to Harvard University in the United States to pursue graduate studies in the laboratory of Prof. George M. Whitesides. At Harvard, Crans worked on enzyme-catalyzed phosphorylation reactions, using glycerol kinase to synthesize chiral analogs of glycerol. She graduated with her Ph.D. in 1985. She went on to do postdoctoral work with Orville L. Chapman and Paul D. Boyer at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1985 to 1986, studying the mechanistic enzymology of the F1 subunit of ATP synthase from chloroplasts and beef heart.

Independent career and research Crans began her independent career as an assistant professor at Colorado State University in 1987. Vanadium: The Versatile Metal and Vanadium in Biochemistry. Crans served as chair of the American Chemical Society in 2015 and 2016. She has also been associate editor for the New Journal of Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, the Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry and Coordination Chemistry Reviews.

Crans has contributed to over 215 peer-reviewed articles. As of spring 2019, her work has been cited 7,200 times excluding self-citations making her h-index of 53. Her review paper, "The chemistry and biochemistry of vanadium and the biological activities exerted by vanadium compounds" has been cited over 900 times. Her study on "Effects of vanadium complexes with organic ligands on glucose metabolism: a comparison study in diabetic rats" describes the use of vanadium compounds as hypoglycemic agents, and it has been widely cited.

Awards

International Awards

2019 ACS Award for Distinguished Service in the Advancement of Inorganic Chemistry 2015 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award 2016 Royal Society Fellow 2009 ACS Fellow 1993-96 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow 1994 Alberta Heritage Foundation award 1990-1992 Eli Lilly Young Investigator Award 1989-1994 National Institutes of Health FIRST award

Personal life She currently resides in Northern Colorado with her husband and three daughters. One daughter is pursuing the PhD in chemistry at Northwestern University, one is an undergraduate student at Colorado State University, and one works as a financial planner.