William H. Fenical

William H. Fenical (born June 24, 1941 in Chicago ) is an American chemist and marine biologist.

Fenical studied biochemistry from California State Polytechnic University with a bachelor's degree in 1963 and organic chemistry from San Jose State University with a master's degree in 1965. He received his doctorate in 1968 from the University of California, Riverside , (Electrocyclic Reactions of Polycyclic Polyolefins) . He was then a research chemist at Shell and an instructor at San Bernardino Valley College (where he also did research at the University of California, Riverside) before joining the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 1973 . In 1974 he became a lecturer there, 1982 Associate Professor and 1983 Professor. In 1987 he became Associate Director and in 1988 Acting Director of the Institute of Marine Resources, which he was until 1993, and from 1989 to 1996 he was director of the Marine Research Division. In 2005 he became Distinguished Professor of Oceanography and in 2006 also of Pharmacy.

He deals with the chemistry of natural substances in marine organisms and discovered salinosporamide A (a cytostatic agent) and lophotoxin (a diterpene from corals of the genus Lophogorgia and acetylcholine antagonist).

In 2009 he received the Inhoffen Medal , in 2006 the Ernest Guenther Award and in 2006 the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy and its Fellow. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

Web links

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Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fenical et al. a., Lophotoxin: a novel neuromuscular toxin from Pacific sea whips of the genus Lophogorgia, Science, Volume 212, 1981, pp. 1512-1514, PMID 6112796