The St. Louis Award, sponsored by the Monsanto Co., is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of chemistry and demonstrated potential to further the advancement of the chemical profession. The award consists of a $1,500 honorarium and a plaque. Gilbertson is the 11th Washington University chemist to receive the St. Louis Award since its inception in 1970.

Scott R. Gilbertson, Ph.D.

The ACS was chartered by Congress in 1876 and is the world's largest scientific society with more than 163,000 members. The ACS advances knowledge and research through scholarly publishing, scientific conferences, information resources for education and business, and professional-development efforts.

The ACS also plays a leadership role in educating and communicating with public audiences -- citizens, students, public leaders and others -- about the important role that chemistry plays in identifying new solutions, improving public health, protecting the environment and contributing to the economy.

Gilbertson's research focus is on combinatorial chemistry, a valuable tool for the discovery of new drug candidates. Gilbertson and his research group have embarked on a program that will allow the use of combinatorial technology in the development of new catalysts.

They have developed a system that allows for the synthesis and screening of libraries of phosphine transition metal complexes by combinatorial methods. Gilbertson is beginning to use this technology in the discovery of new transition metal complexes that catalyze a number of novel organic transformations.

Gilbertson earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse in 1979. He earned a master's in chemistry in 1982 from the University of Michigan and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1988.

He was a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Postdoctoral Fellow from 1988-90 at the University of Chicago, and came to Washington University in 1990 as assistant professor, advancing to associate professor in 1997 and professor in 2001.