CCL: 2011 Herman Skolnik Award Winner Announced

 Sent to CCL by: "Phil  McHale" [pmchale : cambridgesoft.com]
 Professor Dr. Alexander (Sandy) Lawson will be the recipient of the 2011 Herman
 Skolnik Award presented by the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF). The
 award recognizes outstanding contributions to and achievements in the theory and
 practice of chemical information science and related disciplines. The prize
 consists of a $3,000 honorarium and a plaque. The winner will also be invited to
 present an award symposium at the Fall 2011 ACS Meeting.
 Sandy Lawson is recognized as a pioneer and far-sighted visionary in the fields
 of chemical structure handling, database searching, chemical nomenclature,
 reading machines, and linking text and structural information. He has made
 numerous innovative contributions, often struggling with the limitations of
 nascent technology, to develop early prototypes to validate concepts, which
 sometimes only bore fruit when the technology caught up with his ideas. Sandy
 has spent a large part of his career associated with "Beilstein,"
 initially working with the Beilstein Handbook. As early aids to searching in
 Beilstein, he developed the Lawson Number and the SANDRA program. He was
 instrumental in the creation and development of the electronic Beilstein
 Database, including both the organization, data structure, and indexing, and
 also the development of the powerful CrossFire search engine and interface,
 capable of handling millions of molecules, reactions, and properties.
 Sandy has a deep and abiding interest in chemical nomenclature and has been
 active on IUPAC Committees for Publications, Databases, and Structural
 Representation, including Division VIII Chemical Nomenclature of Organic
 Structures. His expertise lead him and his team to develop the first commercial
 program for generating systematic names from structures, AUTONOM, and then its
 counterpart, to generate structures from names. More recently Sandy has been
 involved in the consolidation of Beilstein, Gmelin, and Patent Chemistry
 Database into a unified database with modern and chemist-friendly interface,
 Reaxys. In his current role within Reed Elsevier, and in earlier organizations,
 he pioneered building bridges between the structured world of molecules and
 reactions in databases and the looser but nonetheless related realm of text in
 journals, and the early DYMOND Linking project presaged later developments such
 as Project Prospect from the Royal Society of Chemistry.
 Sandy Lawson received a B.Sc. from the University of St. Andrews, and a Ph.D.
 and D.I.C. from the University of London. He did post-graduate work at the
 Universities of Kent and Mainz, and was an extramural professor at the latter.
 He has been awarded the Irvine Medal (1966), Forrester Prize (1966), Gold Medal
 (1985, for Sandra), EuroCase IT Prizewinner (1997, for CrossFire), and the CSA
 Trust Mike Lynch Award (2008). He has continued to pursue his love of
 cheminformatics research and development through a series of organizations,
 including the Beilstein Institute, Beilstein Informationssysteme GmbH, MDL
 Information Systems GmbH, Elsevier Information Systems GmbH, and latterly
 Elsevier Properties SA in Neuchtel.
 Sandy Lawson is among the handful of truly excellent cheminformatics scientists
 at work today, and is widely and thoroughly respected. He is a gentleman's
 scientist with a tremendous understanding of chemistry and computers. He
 embodies the best qualities of cheminformatics and is truly worthy of this
 award.
 Phil McHale
 Chair, CINF Awards Committee