M.G. Finn, Ph.D., to head American Chemical Society’s Journal of Combinatorial Chemistry

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1, 2010 — The American Chemical Society (ACS) Board of Directors has announced the appointment of M.G. Finn, Ph.D., of Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Combinatorial Chemistry.

Finn will assume the editorship of the journal from Anthony Czarnik, Ph.D., the founding editor of the journal which was launched in 1999. During his tenure, Czarnik propelled the journal to be the leading publication in combinatorial chemistry.

The impending change in editorship offered an opportunity to significantly change the editorial tenor and scope of the journal to ensure continued success of the publication, according to the ACS Publications Division. ACS Publications developed, in partnership with Finn and leading scientists in the field, a revised scope for the journal which called for its expansion to include biological and materials combinatorial and high throughput studies.

The journal will be renamed ACS Combinatorial Science to communicate the expansion in scope.

“While retaining the journal's role as the home for many of the best papers in combinatorial chemistry, our main goal is to expand the journal's coverage,” Finn said. “Combinatorial methods are used to discover functional molecules in a wide variety of fields."

Finn’s scientific background, broad research interest, and his ability to engage scientists from many fields will ensure the success of ACS Combinatorial Science, ACS Publications noted. He earned his B.S in chemistry from California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subsequently, he was appointed a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. He joined the faculty at University of Virginia as an Assistant Professor before moving to the Scripps Research Institute in 1998. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps and holds joint appointments in The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology and Center for Integrative Molecular Biosciences.

Finn’s research efforts are focused on the mechanisms of chemical reactivity with a desire to place efficient bond-making at the service of chemistry, biology, and materials science. His research interests include traditional and combinatorial synthesis of biologically active compounds, traditional and combinatorial development of transition metal catalysis, and development of reactions for organic synthesis and materials science. Finn has published more than 39 peer-reviewed articles and reviews since 2006 on both basic and applied research topics such as click chemistry, catalysis, materials, nanotechnology and virus-based chemical biology. His research has been published in ACS journals including but not limited to the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), Organic Letters, The Journal of Organic Chemistry, Bioconjugate Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, and Biochemistry. He currently serves on the editorial advisory board of ACS’ Bioconjugate Chemistry and reviews for numerous journals.

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