- Myron L. Bender
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Myron Lee Bender (1924–1988) was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He obtained his B.S. (1944) and his Ph.D. (1948) from Purdue University. The latter was under the direction of Henry B. Hass. After postdoctoral research under Paul D. Barlett (Harvard University), and Frank H. Westheimer (University of Chicago), he spent one year as a faculty member at the University of Connecticut. Thereafter, he was a professor of Chemistry at Illinois Institute of Technology in 1951, and then at Northwestern University in 1960. He worked primarily in the study of reaction mechanisms and the biochemistry of enzyme action. Myron L. Bender demonstrated the two-step mechanism of catalysis for serine proteases, nucleophilic catalysis in ester hydrolysis and intramolecular catalysis in water. He also showed that cyclodextrin can be used to investigate catalysis of organic reactions within the scope of host-guest chemistry. Finally, he and others reported on the synthesis of an organic compound as a model of an acylchymotrypsin intermediate.
During his career, Myron L. Bender was an active member of the Chicago Section of the American Chemical Society. He was elected a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford University, and to the National Academy of Sciences, the latter in 1968. He received an honorary degree from Purdue University in 1969. He was the recipient of the Midwest Award of the American Chemical Society in 1972.
Professor Bender retired from Northwestern in 1988. Both he and his wife, Muriel S. Bender, died that year. The Myron L. Bender & Muriel S. Bender Distinguished Summer Lectures in Organic Chemistry was established in their honor in 1989 and continues to be hosted by Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University.
Bender Distinguished Summer Lecturers
Lecturer --- Year --- Affiliation Frederick M. Menger 1989 Emory University Julius K. Rebek 1990 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Martin Newscomb 1991 Texas A&M University JoAnne Stubbe 1992 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Peter B. Dervan 1993 California Institute of Technology Marye Anne Fox and James K. Whitesell 1994 University of Texas Richard Lerner 1995 Scripps Research Institute Jan W. Verhoeven 1996 The University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Eric N. Jacobsen 1997 Harvard University Larry E. Overman 1998 University of California, Irvine Ronald Breslow 1999 Columbia University Jean Fréchet 2000 University of California, Berkeley Dale Boger 2001 Scripps Research Institute Andrew Hamilton 2002 Yale University Barbara Imperiali 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology François Diederich 2004 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) Erick M. Carreira 2005 Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) Klaus Müllen 2006 Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research Ben L. Feringa 2007 University of Groningen, The Netherlands Christopher Walsh 2008 Harvard Medical School Stephen L. Buchwald 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology Publications
Myron L. Bender published five books and over 230 research papers over his lifetime. He published at least 32 peer-reviewed papers while at Northwestern. The 5 most highly cited are:
- Dsouza, VT; Bender, ML. 1987. Miniature Organic-Models Of Enzymes. Accounts of Chemical Research 20 (4): 146-152. Time cited:216
- Komiyama, M; Bender, ML. 1978. Thermodynamic Studies Of Cyclodextrin-Accelerated Cleavage Of Phenyl Esters. Journal of the American Chemical Society 100 (14): 4576-4579. Time cited:93
- Komiyama, M; Bender, ML. 1978. Importance Of Apolar Binding In Complex-Formation Of Cyclodextrins With Adamantanecarboxylate. Journal of the American Chemical Society 100 (7): 2259-2260. Times cited: 80
- Kitaura, Y; Bender, ML. 1975. Ester Hydrolyses Catalyzed By Modified Cyclodextrins. Bioorganic Chemistry 4 (3): 237-249. Times cited: 63
- Iwakura, Y; Uno, K; Toda, F; Onozuka, S; Hattori, K; Bender, ML. 1975. Stereochemically Correct Catalytic Site On Cyclodextrin Resulting In A Better Enzyme Model. Journal of the American Chemical Society 97 (15): 4432-4434. Times cited: 53
Issn: 0002-7863
References
Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Brochure for the Myron L. Bender & Muriel S. Bender Distinguished Summer Lectures in Organic Chemistry, 2009.
Frank H. Westheimer, Myron L. Bender, in Biographical Memoirs, the National Academy of Sciences (includes photograph of Prof. Bender, last accessed November 28, 2009, http://www.nap.edu/readingroom.php?book=biomems&page=mbender.html)
Categories:- 1924 births
- 1988 deaths
- Purdue University alumni
- Harvard University alumni
- University of Chicago alumni
- American chemists
- American biochemists
- University of Connecticut faculty
- Illinois Institute of Technology faculty
- Northwestern University faculty
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