Media Centre

05 July 2010

Triple award honor for Sheffield professor

An expert in information science from the University of Sheffield has received international acclaim for his outstanding contributions to the field of chemical information.

Professor Peter Willett, from the University´s Department of Information Studies, is the 2010 recipient of the Patterson-Crane Award of the Dayton and Columbus Sections of the American Chemical Society. Professor Willett will receive the biennial award, which consists of an honorarium and a personalised commendation, at a plenary session of the CeRMACS 2010 conference in Dayton, Ohio last month (16 June 2010).

The award means that Professor Willett is the first person to have received all three of the American Chemical Society's awards for information processing. In 1993 Professor Willett was the youngest-ever recipient of the Skolnik Award for outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of chemical information science, and in 2005 he was the second only non-US recipient of the Award for Computers in Chemical and Pharmaceutical Research for outstanding achievement in the use of computers for research in the chemical and biological sciences.

Professor Willett´s research focuses on the design of search systems for chemical structure databases, and the use of cluster analysis, graph theory and evolutionary computing methods for drug discovery.

Professor Willett said: "I am delighted to be the recipient of the Patterson-Crane Award, not just on personal basis but also because it recognises the leading role that the Sheffield chemoinformatics group has played in the development of the subject for over forty years."

Professor Sheila Corrall, Head of the Department of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, added: "Peter has long been recognised as one of the top information scientists in the world, but his achievements in the specialist field of chemoinformatics have been outstanding and a shining example of how advances in information science can enable important breakthroughs in other areas such as drug discovery."

For further information please contact: Lauren Anderson, Media Relations Officer, on 0114 2221046 or email l.h.anderson@sheffield.ac.uk

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