Assistant Professor Gets Research Grant

Keith Woerpel, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Irvine, has been named one of three 1998 national Chemistry Scholars by the Glaxo-Wellcome pharmaceutical company.

The award, accompanied by a two-year, $40,000 research grant, is for exceptional, young faculty in the fields of organic, bioorganic, medicinal or structural chemistry.

Woerpel’s work in synthetic organic chemistry provides methods that can be used to prepare complicated molecules for use in biomedicine, including new types of antibiotics, university officials said.