Philip Dawson receives 2024 American Chemical Society National Award

Dawson is honored with the Arthur C. Cope Late Careers Scholar Award for his foundational contributions in organic chemistry.

September 08, 2023

LA JOLLA, CA — Philip E. Dawson, PhD, chemistry professor and dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies at Scripps Research, has been awarded the 2024 Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award by the American Chemical Society (ACS). This award, which is a part of ACS’s prestigious National Awards program, recognizes and encourages excellence in organic chemistry. 

The ACS National Awards promote the advancement of chemistry in all its branches, support research endeavors and promote the careers of chemists. The continued excellence of the ACS awards program requires that highly qualified chemistry professionals are nominated by their peers and that great care is taken in preparing the nominations.

“I am deeply honored to receive this award from the American Chemical Society, which is also a testament to the dedication and hard work of my collaborators and lab,” says Dawson. “Arthur C. Cope was an outstanding organic chemist known for developing numerous important chemical reactions, and I am excited to continue devising creative synthetic solutions to persistent biological problems with this support from ACS.”

Dawson’s research focus is in developing chemical approaches for the synthesis and conjugation of biological macromolecules including proteins glycans and nucleic acids. By developing highly chemoselective reactions that operate efficiently in water, complex macromolecules can be synthesized and modified without use of the traditional protecting groups that are widely used in organic chemistry. Ultimately, the Dawson lab is able to change a protein’s structure in ways that were previously impossible. The overarching goal of their research is to better understand the molecular basis of how proteins and oligonucleotides function in biological systems and medicine.

Throughout his career, Dawson has authored more than 190 publications, was an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and has earned such honors as the Max-Bergmann Gold Medal, the Vincent du Vigneaud Award, the Leonidas Zervas Award and the Akabori Medal. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, graduating magna cum laude. After earning his doctoral degree at Scripps Research, Dawson conducted postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology before returning to Scripps Research as assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology, later becoming a professor in the Department of Chemistry. He was named Dean of Scripps Research’s Skaggs Graduate School in 2017.

Dawson is one of four other chemists to receive the Arthur C. Cope Late Career Scholar Award, which consists of $5,000, a certificate and a $40,000 unrestricted research training award. He will be presented with the award at the society’s ACS Fall 2024 meeting in Denver, Colo. on August 20, 2024.

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