Hamilton Award 2016

The 35th Cliff S. Hamilton Award Lecture was held on October 27th. This year’s awardee, Professor Chaitan Khosla, is a chemical engineering, chemistry, and biochemistry professor at Stanford University, and he holds the Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professorship in the School of Engineering at Stanford. He was recognized for his contribution to natural product chemistry, especially for pioneering mechanistic work and the engineered biosynthesis of novel polyketides. His lecture, “Disulfide Bond Switches in Health and Disease: The Example of Celiac Disease,” was delivered in front of a large crowd that included members of the Hamilton family, students, administrators and faculty members from various departments at Nebraska (chemistry, biochemistry, plant pathology), faculty from regional universities and industrial scientists.

Khosla served as the Chair of Chemical Engineering at Stanford between 2006 and 2011, and he is the founding director of a new highly interdisciplinary institute at Stanford University known as “ChEM-H” = Chemistry, Engineering and Medicine for Human Health.  His research has two major themes: (1) the study of polyketide-based enzymological machines for natural product biosynthesis and (2) the molecular basis of celiac disease.

In the former area, advances from his laboratory have led to the rational design and synthesis of novel polyketides based upon recombinant assembly of polyketide synthase subunits, cell-free biosynthesis, and intermodular communication.

In the latter area, his contributions to the pathogenesis of gluten intolerance in Celiac Sprue and structural basis for the disease have led to new enzyme inhibitors. His work on celiac disease has also led to the founding of the non-profit, Celiac Sprue Research Foundation.

Khosla has co-authored over 330 papers and 75 issued U.S. patents and has been recognized with 27 named lectureships. He has received several awards and honors, including the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, and the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation. Khosla is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the National Academy Engineering, and a member of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences.   He also serves on the Advisory Board of Chemical Reviews and the editorial boards of five other highly recognized journals.

The Hamilton Award is named after Cliff S. Hamilton, a research-active organic chemist on faculty at Nebraska from 1923-1957 who was widely recognized for his work on the synthesis of organic compounds containing arsenic, antimony, or phosphorus and for the study of heterocyclic compounds utilizable as drugs.  In collaboration with the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company, C.S. Hamilton helped develop Mapharsen, an organo-arsenical antibiotic once widely used as an anti-treponemal agent, and Camoquin, an antimalarial. Hamilton served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Nebraska from 1939 to 1955, and he was also the Dean of the Graduate College at Nebraska from 1938 to 1939 and from 1940 to 1941.

Selected Honors and Award for Professor Khosla 

2011 James E. Bailey Award, Society for Biological Engineering

2009 Elected to National Academy of Engineering

2009 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award, American Chemical Society

2008 "One Hundred Engineers of the Modern Era", American Institute of Chemical Engineers

2008 Professional Progress Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers

2007 Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

2006 Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

2003 Distinguished Alumni Award, Ranbaxy Research Award in Medical Science

2003 Global Indus Technovators Award

2003 Distinguished Alumnus Award, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay

2000 MDS PanLabs Award, Society for Industrial Microbiology

2000 Distinguished Alumni Award, California Institute of Technology

2000 ACS Award in Pure Chemistry

1999 Alan T. Waterman Award, National Science Foundation

1999 ACS Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry

1997 Allan P. Colburn Award, American Institute of Chemical Engineers

1994 David and Lucile Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering

1994 National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award

1991 Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Investigator Award