Spinks Seminar Series

J. W. T. Spinks Lecture Series

These annual lectures, established in 1975, recognize the many contributions Dr. J.W.T. Spinks made to his departments, the university, and the chemical professions, both nationally and internationally. As faculty member, Department Head, Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research, University President, and President Emeritus, Dr. Spinks was associated with our University from 1930 until his passing in 1997.

The lecture series brings to the University of Saskatchewan eminent scientists and engineers in the fields of chemistry and chemical engineering to deliver a series of lectures and to share their knowledge and experience with students and staff. This series is run jointly with the Department of Chemical Engineering, which hosts the Spinks lectures every third year.

2018-2019 Spinks Lecture

C. White Dr. Chris Chang is the Class of 1942 Chair Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was born in Ames, Iowa and completed his B.S./M.S. at Caltech in 1997, working with Harry Gray, Fulbright scholarship in Strasbourg, France with Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Ph.D. at MIT in 2002 with Dan Nocera, and postdoc at MIT with Steve Lippard, before beginning his independent career at UC Berkeley in 2004. Research in the Chang group focuses on the study of metals in biology and energy, with particular interests in neuroscience, metabolism, and artificial photosynthesis. His lab has made fundamental discoveries in inorganic and biological chemistry through developing activity-based sensing probes to open a field of transition metal signaling, exemplified by identifying copper and hydrogen peroxide signals that regulate processes spanning neural activity to fat metabolism. The discovery of copper signaling establishes a new paradigm for metals in biology, expanding the roles of redox transition metals beyond metabolic cofactors. Chang's lab has also advanced artificial photosynthesis through bioinorganic catalyst design. Chang has published over 180 papers with an average of 110 citations per paper, with 10 awarded patents, and has given over 350 invited lectures. His group's research has been honored by Dreyfus, Beckman, Sloan, and Packard Foundations, Amgen, Astra Zeneca, Novartis, AFAR, MIT TR35, ACS (Cope Scholar, Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, Baekeland Award), RSC (Transition Metal Chemistry), and SBIC. Recent awards include the 2013 Noyce Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2015 Blavatnik Award in Chemistry, 2018 RSC Jeremy Knowles Award, 2019 Sackler Prize in Chemistry, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Chang has mentored over 70 grad students and postdocs, with over 30 group alumni in independent faculty positions across the world.

Research Lecture
Activity-Based Sensing Approaches to Decipher Transition Metal Signaling
Thursday, April 25, 3:45 p.m.

Thorvaldson 105

General Lecture
Bringing Chemistry to Life: The Unending Search for Elemental Harmony
Friday, April 26, 3:45 p.m.

Arts 241

List of Chemistry Lecturers

2017-18	M.C. White University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign
2015-16	P. Kamat University of Notre Dame
2013-14	S. I. Stupp Northwestern University
2010-11	I. Manners University of Bristol, UK
2008-09	M. Lautens University of Toronto
2007-08	S. G. Withers University of British Columbia
2004-05	D. L. Boger The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA
2003-04	J. F. Stoddart University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2001-02	G.M. Whitesides Harvard University
2000-01	P.B. Dervan California Institute of Technology
1998-99	R. Breslow Columbia University, NY, USA
1997-98	F.S. Rowland University of California, Irvine, USA
1995-96	M.A. Fox University of Texas, Austin, USA
1994-95	P. von Ragué Schleyer Universität Erlangen, Germany
1992-93	B.E. Conway University of Ottawa
1991-92	K. Mislow Princeton University, USA
1989-90	A.K. Pikaev Academy of Sciences, USSR
1988-89	P. Deslongchamps University of Sherbrooke
1986-87	H. Taube Stanford University, USA
1985-86	P.C. Lauterbur University of Illinois, USA
1983-84	G. Herzberg Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics National Research Council of Canada
1982-83	G.A. Ozin University of Toronto
1980-81	L.M. Dorfman The Ohio State University, USA
1979-80	D. Phillips Royal Institution of Great Britain
1978-79	H. Eyring University of Utah, USA
1976-77	R.U. Lemieux University of Alberta
1975-76	J.C. Polanyi University of Toronto