Bert Fraser-Reid is a distinguished researcher in organic synthesis and sugar chemistry. In 1966, at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, he developed a process to make synthetic pheromones, the chemical attractants produced naturally by insects and other species. For this discovery, he received the Merck, Sharpe and Dohme Award for outstanding contribution to organic chemistry in Canada in 1977. At Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, Fraser-Reid has conducted groundbreaking research on the synthesis of organic compounds from simple sugars. In addition, he has led a research team that developed a unique process to combine simple sugars into oligosaccharides, complex sugars composed of two or more monosaccharides. This process, as Fraser-Reid indicated in Black Enterprise, "may have some potential to facilitate the development of a cure for AIDS." A Black Enterprise writer speculates that Fraser-Reid's research may ultimately earn him a Nobel Prize in chemistry, for which he has already been nominated.
Bertram Oliver Fraser-Reid, who has dual Jamaican and Canadian citizenship, was born on February 23, 1934, in Coleyville, Jamaica, to William Benjamin Reid and Laura Maria Fraser. Fraser-Reid was working as a teacher when, at the age of twenty-two, he became interested in chemistry. This led him to Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, where he earned his B.S. degree in 1959 and his M.S. degree in 1961. Fraser-Reid married Lillian Lawryniuk on December 21, 1963; they have two children, Andrea and Terry. Fraser-Reid received his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Alberta in 1964. From 1964 to 1966, he held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Imperial College of the University of London.
In 1966, Fraser-Reid joined the faculty of the University of Waterloo, where he remained until 1980. During this period, he was able to effect the organic synthesis (the preparation of complex organic structures from simpler compounds) of pheromones, which social insects emit to transmit messages about food sources, the presence of predators, and reproductive behavior. The Canadian Forestry Service was subsequently able to control insect populations that were damaging timber by using synthetic pheromones to disrupt the insect's mating cycles; relying on synthetic pheromones allowed the Forestry Service to discontinue their use of DDT, the controversial insecticide now banned throughout much of the world. Since glucose (a form of sugar) was the basis for Fraser-Reid's synthetic pheromones, the larger implication of his achievement is that sugars can be used in place of petroleum for industrial applications of organic synthesis--a discovery with potentially global economic ramifications in terms of the manufacture of plastics and pharmaceuticals.
Fraser-Reid was a professor of chemistry at the University of Maryland from 1980 to 1982. He joined the faculty of Duke University in 1982, becoming the James B. Duke professor of chemistry in 1985. Commenting on his experiences as an educator, Fraser-Reid told Black Enterprise, "It never ceases to amaze me how young impressionable minds can mature into competent scientists." He encourages all students, and especially black students at Duke, to consider careers in science and engineering. Nonetheless, he is quoted in Science as regretting that "The black students in my classes are first and foremost Americans, and over the past 15 to 20 years Americans have not been going into science and engineering."
During his tenure at Duke, Fraser-Reid's research turned to the biochemistry of oligosaccharides, which his team of researchers have been able to synthesize from simple sugars. As Fraser-Reid noted in Black Enterprise, oligosaccharides are "among the most important biological regulators in nature ... They regulate the whole immune system." Oligosaccharides are involved in the biological functioning of the antigenic substances found in the blood, which are complex carbohydrates capable of stimulating an immune response. Thus, advances in the understanding of oligosaccharides and in oligosaccharide synthesis promise to play an important role in the medical battle against AIDS .
Fraser-Reid was named Senior Distinguished U.S. Scientist by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in 1989. In 1990, he received both a Jamaican National Foundation Award and the American Chemical Society Claude S. Hudson Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry. In 1991, he received the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers' Percy Julian Award. In 1993, he served as chair of the Gordon Conference on Carbohydrates. Fraser-Reid was also awarded the 1995 Haworth Memorial Medal and Lectureship of the Royal Society of Chemistry. His professional memberships include the Chemical Institute of Canada, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute of Chemistry, and the British Chemical Society. He also serves as consultant to Blackside Films on minorities in science. An accomplished organist, Fraser-Reid has performed at recitals internationally.
This is the complete article, containing 754 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page).
