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April 04, 2006

Wallace H. Carothers Award Lecture - Professor Alan Davison, MIT

Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society
April General Meeting

2006 Wallace H. Carothers Award Lecture
Professor Alan Davison
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Role of Technetium Chemistry in the
Design of Diagnostic Imaging Agents

Date: Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Location: The DuPont Country Club
                1001 Rockland Road
                Wilmington, DE 19803
                http://www.dupontcountryclub.com

Time: 5:30 PM – Reception with hors d’oeuvres and cash bar
          6:30 PM – Dinner
          7:30 PM – Award Presentation and Carothers Lecture

Cost: $30 per person for Delaware ACS members and guest
          $40 per person for non-ACS members
          $15 per person for students

Dinner Choices: 8 oz. Filet Mignon with Sun-Dried Tomato and Truffle Sauce
Grilled Breast of Chicken “Mediterranean” with Preserved Lemon, Olives, and Tomato (served over Cous Cous)
Mushroom and Vegetable Cous Cous Strudel

For reservations or additional information, please contact John Gavenonis at john.gavenonis@usa.dupont.com (preferred) or 302-999-5600 before noon on Wednesday, March 29, 2006. Please indicate your dinner selection. If no preference is provided, Mushroom and Vegetable Cous Cous Strudel will be selected. Reservations not cancelled by Friday, March 31, 2006 will be billed.

Abstract
The importance of technetium radiopharmaceuticals as diagnostic imaging agents is, to a large part, due to the aqueous inorganic chemistry of this man-made element. A rational synthetic understanding of technetium chemistry has enhanced the field of nuclear medicine. An illustration of this is provided by the development of a technetium-based myocardial perfusion imaging agent that has become a very important tool in clinical nuclear cardiology. At the heart of this advance are octahedral homoleptic isonitrile complexes of technetium(I).

Biography
Having grown up in Wales, Davison earned his B.Sc. in chemistry from the University College of Swansea (1959). After completing his graduate studies with Nobel Laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, he obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry at Imperial College of Science and Technology (1962). Davison began his independent academic career in 1962 as an Instructor in Chemistry at Harvard University and joined the chemistry faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. Davison has made numerous contributions to various aspects of inorganic chemistry including organometallic, boron, coordination, and bioinorganic chemistries. His research led to the synthesis of a number of novel hydride and carbonyl complexes of transition metals, and in the 1960s, Davison and F. Albert Cotton co-authored a series of papers describing the first fluxional organometallic molecules.

“These discoveries, which would be defining to the careers of most, serve only as a backdrop to the contribution for which he is being honored… the invention of the entire class of technetium compounds from which Cardiolite® came, and the use of Cardiolite® as a myocardial perfusion agent,” notes MIT W.M. Keck Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry Daniel G. Nocera. Indeed, Davison’s investigations of technetium coordination chemistry guided Cardiolite® from initial discovery in 1981 to FDA approval in 1990. Cardiolite® is now the leading cardiac imaging agent in the world. It is the only heart imaging agent FDA-approved to non-invasively evaluate the heart’s pumping ability (function) and gauge the amount of blood flow to the heart muscle itself (perfusion). Cardiolite® topped $2 billion (USD) in cumulative sales in 2004, and is the single largest royalty earner in the entire MIT portfolio, providing even more revenue than the royalties associated with Professor John Sheehan’s patents describing synthetic penicillin.

Davison has authored or co-authored over 250 publications and is a co-inventor on nine patents. He is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow (1967), a recipient of the Paul C. Aebersold Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science Applied to Nuclear Medicine (1993), a recipient of the Ernest H. Swift Lectureship at the California Institute of Technology (1999), a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (2000), and a recipient of the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention (2006). After over 40 rewarding years at MIT, he became an emeritus Professor in June of 2005.

About the Wallace H. Carothers Award
The Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society presents the Carothers Award in recognition of outstanding contributions in industrial chemistry. It commemorates the pioneering work of Wallace H. Carothers, considered by many to be the father of industrial polymer chemistry. The list of past awardees includes such illustrious scientists as Edwin H. Land, Herman F. Mark, Paul J. Flory, Ralph F. Hirschmann, K. Barry Sharpless, and Robert S. Langer. This annual award is especially important for the ACS since it is an international industrial chemistry award given by a local section. Nominations are accepted on an on-going basis.

Posted by at 05:30 PM

April 21, 2006

Young Alum Happy Hour - Continental Midtown

Join fellow Young Alumni for a Happy Hour at Continental Midtown in Philadelphia.

Date: Friday, April 21, 2006
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: Continental Midtown
1801 Chestnut Street
(18th and Chestnut Streets)
Philadelphia, PA 19103
215-567-1800

Posted by at 06:00 PM

April 26, 2006

BizNet Lecture on International and US Intellectual Property

The MIT Club of the Delaware Valley BizNet invites you to a lecture with

George Frank, Ph.D. (V '65)
Of Counsel, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

WHEN: Wed, April 26, 2006 at 6:30 p.m.
WHERE: Jon M Huntsman Hall, Rm G50, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19104
COST: $10 per person
RSVP: https://alum.mit.edu/smarTrans/user/Register.dyn?eventID=5407&groupID=158
CONTACT: Robert Barrimond at (610) 308-7334 or robert.barrimond@alum.mit.edu

LAWS AFFECTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE REST OF THE WORLD: TENSION OR HARMONY?

Dr. George A. Frank is Of Counsel in the Intellectual Property Group of the Business and Finance Department and Chairman of its Licensing and Technology Transfer Practice Team. His practice is focused on domestic and international corporate partnering, licensing and joint ventures involving patent law, chemical technologies and biotechnology, as well as related litigation, including patents and products liability. He counsels clients ranging from Fortune 100 to middle market to emerging technology companies. His extensive legal, business and scientific experience in the private sector enables him to address the issues that clients face on a daily basis.

Topics will include:

More on Dr. Frank

A substantial part of Dr. Frank’s practice involves acting as a day-to-day legal advisor to a number of small to mid-size companies, from start-ups to established public corporations. He is experienced in providing practical legal solutions to complex problems that face companies, as related to all manner of transactions having an intellectual property component. In such transactions, Dr. Frank has handled due diligence investigations and the structuring of technology transfer for mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures, and strategic alliances.

Prior to joining the firm, Dr. Frank was Corporate Counsel for E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was Intellectual Property Group Leader. In more than 27 years at DuPont, he was also Lead Counsel to the $2 billion Lycra® business, Lead Counsel for the specialty chemical business, Lead Counsel for the diagnostics and biotechnology divisions, and advisor to diverse businesses including Lucite® finishes, Teflon® perfluoropolymers, Corian® surface products, and Berg Electronics. While at DuPont, he also served as chairman of the corporate Foreign IP Law Practice Committee.

Dr. Frank’s private sector experience also includes working for over a nine-year period as a senior corporate scientist for Thiokol Corporation, as a laboratory head for Borden Chemical Company, and as a group leader and senior chemist for Rohm & Haas Company. During this time, he also served for nearly two years as an adjunct professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Posted by webmaster at 10:30 PM