Paul Wender

Paul Anthony Wender is an American chemist whose work is focused on organic chemistry, organometallic chemistry, synthesis, catalysis, chemical biology, imaging, drug delivery, and molecular therapeutics. He is currently the Francis W. Bergstrom Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Biography Born in 1947, Wender received a B.S. from Wilkes University in 1969, and a Ph.D. degree from Yale University in 1973. At Yale he worked with Frederick E. Ziegler, graduating with a thesis on the transformation of ketones into nitriles, and the total synthesis of eremophilone. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University in 1974. In 1974, he began his independent career as an assistant professor and later associate professor at Harvard University. In 1982, he became a professor at Stanford University. He is currently the Francis W. Bergstrom Professor of Chemistry there.

His research involves the targeted synthesis of complex biologically interesting molecules. He coined the term "function-oriented synthesis." He pursues applications for drugs in cancer therapy, for example, and synthesized phorbol, taxol, resiniferatoxin and prostatin, among others. Because of his work on the synthesis of indole derivatives, the Wender indole synthesis he described in 1981 was named after him.

Selected awards and honors

Ernest Guenther Award, 1988 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, 1990 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1992 American Chemical Society Award for Creative work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 1998 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2001 Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry, 2012 Foreign member - Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences, 2013 ACS Arthur C. Cope Award, 2015