Jin-Quan Yu, PhD, the Bristol Myers Squibb Endowed Chair in Chemistry and the Frank and Bertha Hupp Professor in Chemistry at Scripps Research, has won the 2024 Award for Creativity in Molecular Design and Synthesis. The North Jersey Section of the American Chemical Society will present this award to Yu at a symposium on November 21, 2024.

Yu is being honored for his groundbreaking work in C-H activation—a technique for building molecules that has transformed everything from materials science to pharmaceutical development. C-H activation methods are currently used in drug discovery programs spanning from acute pain killers to cancer therapeutics.

Yu’s lab has published more than 300 studies and has collaborated with academic and industry leaders worldwide to expand C-H activation methods. In 2023, Yu published a study in Nature showing that he extended C-H activation to the broad class of chemicals known as alcohols. Furthermore, his 2024 study in Nature Synthesis described an easy method using C-H activation to make saturated heterocycles, which are compounds found in most FDA-approved drugs.

Yu earned his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1999 and joined Scripps Research’s faculty in 2007 after an appointment at Brandeis University and a Royal Society fellowship at the University of Cambridge. In 2016, he received a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “genius grant,” and has been elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Yu’s many recent honors include the Chemical Pioneer Award from the American Institute of Chemists, the Henry J. Albert Award from the International Precious Metals Institute, the Max Tishler Prize from Harvard University, and the Yamada-Koga Prize from the University of Tokyo.