I am honored to receive this award. It is humbling to be associated with Janssen Pharmaceutica Prize and the remarkable list of previous awardees. I am also really looking forward to being back in Belgium and to being part of one of the most famous and important meetings in the world of chemistry.
Dave MacMillan was born in Bellshill, Scotland and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Glasgow, where he worked with Dr. Ernie Colvin. In 1990, he began his doctoral studies under the direction of Professor Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine, before undertaking a postdoctoral position with Professor Dave Evans at Harvard University (1996). He began his independent career at University of California, Berkeley in July of 1998 before moving to Caltech in June of 2000 (Earle C. Anthony Chair of Organic Chemistry). In 2006, Dave moved to the east coast of the US to take up the position of James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University and he became Department Chair in 2010.
Dave has received several awards including the Ernst Schering Award in Biology, Chemistry and Medicine, Germany (2015), ACS Harrison Howe Award (2014), NJ ACS Molecular Design Award (2014), ACS Award for Creativity in Synthesis (2011), the Mitsui Catalysis Award (2011), ACS Cope Scholar Award (2007), ACS EJ Corey Award (2005), the Corday-Morgan Medal (2005).
In 2012 Dave became a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dave helped launch and was editor-in-chief of Chemical Sciences (2009-1014) and is currently Chair of the NIH Study Section SBCA.
Dave is a scientific consultant with Merck (worldwide), Amgen (worldwide), Biogen Biopharma, Abbvie Research Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals, UCB-Celtech, Constellation Pharmaceuticals and Gilead Research Laboratories. Dave is also a member of the scientific advisory boards of Firmenich (Switzerland) and Kadmon Pharmaceuticals (US), and a permanent member of the RSRC board at Merck Research Laboratories.
Along with Dr. Paul Reider, Dave is a co-founder of Chiromics LLC, a growing biotech that seeks to devise new strategies and screening techniques for the identification of drug-like molecules.
Dave MacMillan
