Daniel H. Rich, Ralph F. Hirschmann Professor, School of Pharmacy and Department of Chemistry, retires this summer after 36 incredible years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Rich is a leading researcher in medicinal chemistry, as a result of research that has focused on the design and synthesis of protease inhibitors, the conformational aspects of cyclic peptides, enzyme inhibition, and molecular modeling. He has published widely on enzyme kinetics and synthetic methods for unusual amino acids and peptide chemistry, including useful protecting groups. He is well known for his work on the peptide toxins and inhibitors of HIV and aspartyl proteases, which are highly important in therapeutics. Our basic understanding of the effects of conformation on the biology of peptides has been greatly advanced through the efforts of Dr. Rich’s laboratory.
Dr. Rich’s research accomplishments have earned him recognition from educational and scientific organizations worldwide. Among his numerous awards are the Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award (1992), the Ralph F. Hirschmann Award (1993), and the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award (1999), all from the American Chemical Society (ACS). He won the G.H. Hitchings Award for Innovative Methods in Drug Discovery and Design (1992) from the Welcome Foundation and the R. Bruce Merrifield Award (1999) from the American Peptide Society. Dr. Rich was also recognized by the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists with the Research Achievement Award (1992). He was elected a Fellow in the AAAS (1986). Rich was presented with an “Outstanding Alumni Award” from the University of Minnesota Institute of Technology (2004) and was selected as the recipient of the 2005 Smissman Bristol Myers-Squibb Award of the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry. The latter award is made biennially to a living scientist whose research, teaching, and/or service has had a substantial impact on the intellectual and theoretical development of the field of medicinal chemistry.
Dr. Rich has organized numerous scientific conferences, including the American Peptide Symposium, Gordon Research Conferences, and the 29th ACS National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium. The latter was held in Madison in the summer of 2004 and allowed Dr. Rich to connect with many of his former graduate students and postdoctoral associates. He has trained over 35 Ph.D. graduate students and an additional 50 postdoctoral students, some of whom have risen to positions of prominence in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. He has published over 250 research papers, books, chapters, and patents. Dr. Rich has served in editorial capacities for many journals, including Associate Editor of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and most recently, Organic Letters. He also served the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry as Chair in 1992.
Dr. Rich served the School of Pharmacy as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies for the past several years. Rich contributed to the medicinal chemistry curriculum for the Doctor of Pharmacy program and taught a “Selected Topics in Medicinal Chemistry” course at the graduate level that was well attended by a diverse set of scientific disciplines. Dr. Rich received his B. Chem from the University of Minnesota and his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Cornell University. His postdoctoral training was with Vincent du Vigneaud at Cornell and with W.S. Johnson at Stanford University.