Professor Robert H. Grubbs, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2005, will open the University of Warwick’s £2.3 Million New Chemistry Teaching Labs at 12 noon on Tuesday 20 July.

The new labs are equipped with top-of-the-range “Secuflow fumehoods” with supportive flow technology and lab furniture by Waldner to give the best lab teaching experience and create the safest and most energy-conscious working environment possible.

Following a recent visit to the new labs, Sir Alan Langlands, the CEO of Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)  said: “I recently visited the University of Warwick and saw its superb new teaching facilities in arts, humanities, and chemistry, and a research platform in solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance that is unrivalled worldwide.”

 Professor Peter Sadler FRS, Head of the University of Warwick’s Department of Chemistry, commented:

 “Bob Grubbs’ innovative chemical research has had a major impact on our lives and inspires our students. Training in this new state-of-the-art teaching laboratory will allow our students to follow in his foot-steps and make their own contributions to major global challenges, including advances in healthcare, the production and storage of energy, caring for the environment, and the design of new materials.”

Professor Grubbs will also be given an honorary degree by the University of Warwick the day before.

Professor Robert Grubbs is Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a position he has held since 1990. Professor Grubbs works on organometallic chemistry and synthetic chemistry, concentrating particularly on catalysts. His research on olefin metathesis (a particular form of organic reaction often used in research and industry as a key step to create medicines, polymers, and types of fuel) has developed powerful, ruthenium-based catalysts to enhance this reaction and is widely used  in the fields of medicine and industry. In particular his work produced industrial and pharmaceutical methods that are more environmentally friendly: his citation for the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which he won in 2005 with Richard R Schrock and Yves Chauvin, described it as ‘a great step forward in the development of “green chemistry’. Professor Grubbs has won many other awards and prizes during his career, including the American Chemical Society’s Benjamin Franklin medal in Chemistry and its Herman F Mark Polymer Chemistry Award in 2000, and the Tolman Medal in 2002. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, was made a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2004. He is the author of more than 400 publications and has over 80 patents.

For further information please contact: 

Peter Dunn, Head of Communications
Communications Office, University House,
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 8UW, United Kingdom   
email: p.j.dunn@warwick.ac.uk 
Tel: +44 (0)24 76 523708  Mobile/Cell:  +44 (0)7767 655860

Pr67 19th July 2010