KU CAAB Member Dr. Dale Boger Reflects on Life, Career, and Chemical Pioneer Award

It represents really a culmination of a career’s worth of work. Carried out by students that you get a chance to work with those who have done fabulous things that sometimes don't get the recognition they deserve while they're in graduate school and things. So, it's something that for them, as well as me, it's a great honor to actually receive that award.

That's a tough question. But I would say it would be two people, EJ Corey, who I had a chance to work with and was mentored by, and Albert Eschenmoser, who is a true gentleman and scholar for the field of organic chemistry and organic synthesis for most of the last century. So fabulous individuals carried themselves in a way that would inspire younger scientists.

Probably most proud, there's a great story about, we have a set of organic chemistry notes called, I think it's called modern organic synthesis lecture notes that we assembled. And the way that those got assembled was an amazing enterprise. It was for many years that I would try and reduce those notes, which were handwritten notes, into ChemDraw files that could ultimately be handed out because in those days, there wasn't yet the presentation of materials easily in classrooms by other methods or other ways electronically to use for lecture notes. So, we would hand out the lecture notes, and I would cover a good part of the lecture notes, but there was also information in there that we didn't and couldn't cover. And every year I promised myself I would reduce those from handwritten notes. And so, every year at the beginning of the year for several years running, I had tried to do this, put them into ChemDraw, and I realized that each page took me a day to do, put it into shape, and it just wasn't going to be possible. So, I would give up, and I mentioned this to one of my students in my group, Rob Garbaccio, and he came back a couple days later and said, let me try and do one of these chapters. So, he did one page a day, did 30 pages over the course of a month. came back and it was beautiful. We decided on some style elements and things that would be fun to incorporate and some things that we could do. And then he said, if you give me 15 people for 30 days and each one of them does one page a day, if you give me the okay, the group took it on to do this. And so, as a group, they didn't divert their other activities and things. They just make one page per day. And it was really a tribute to Rob Garbaccio taking the initiative and then ultimately implementing it. And it was an amazing feat. And then several years later, so did this, and so he came in after we had those to hand out for the class and things. He came in a couple weeks later and said, “You know, we can save this in the form of a PDF, and you can present it on a laptop to the class”. And we did that and it wasn't very good. The graphics were a little grainy. Things weren't really looking up. It wasn't ready for that sort of sort of process to take place. And then about halfway through that semester, the new projectors came out with higher resolution, greater, greater depiction of maybe even on the computers as to what they looked like. And about halfway through that semester, we were able to implement that as a teaching tool for organic synthesis. And then a couple of years after that came the possibility of using not just the handouts and the presentation on electronically in the class, but to actually supplant the handouts in the form of an electronic version where all of the cited references in the lecture notes could be linked with a DOI to the actual literature, and all the person has to do is scroll down over the reference and click on what is a hidden link, click on that, and the article would come up. If you're on a network that would allow access to the journal, you would get the article popping up right there. So, it was totally amazing.

It's making molecules, but with a purpose. And what we love doing is the actual technical molecules in the laboratory. But there's a reason why they're important. It's not the quest of the natural product, and it's not the highlight of a method as its driving force, although those things we do. It's really the information that we can gather and learn from the molecules once they're made and in hand to eventually evaluate for their functional properties. And that process is magical in its own right. If you think about it, it's just amazing that one can design small molecules that would impact some feature of physiology or pharmacology.

Oh, that's a great question. Probably in that area, we ourselves have introduced some innovative concepts in medicinal chemistry, some inorganic synthesis methods and strategies for making molecules. But I would say that there is a chance that in time, two or three of the areas have discoveries that could lead to new therapeutics. Even though we may not have made the molecule, they sort of laid the groundwork and foundation for therapeutics to be developed from that science. That's one. The other is really the students that go off with that training and the things that they're able to accomplish in their own careers and things as well. Many at major pharmaceutical companies and in positions of either as a medicinal chemist working at the bench or some at positions that influence the directions of the company and the science that is undertaken and things. Probably it's really the students that have the largest impact and their education.

It's responsible for me being a chemist at all, actually. I grew up in a small town in Kansas with no chemical-based industries surrounding that community. I came to KU and like half the people who come to college, thought maybe I would be a doctor, a physician, maybe an attorney. I mean, I was sort of all over the place. I hadn’t really had a focus on that since students weren’t prepped by parents necessarily to pursue a career as they are today. So, nothing set, just wanted a life or an occupation or career that would be rewarding. I mean, all our parents just wanted us to do something that we wanted to enjoy. Most of them didn’t have that opportunity. They were working to be working actually and raising their family and providing for their families and things. And we were soft of a spoiled, first of the spoiled generations, I would guess. But while taking classes, within a couple of weeks, I realized I was not going to be an attorney and I was not going to be a physician, but I didn’t know what I was going to do. And it was really in a general chemistry class lab, I was taking it as a science requirement, I remember telling the TA that I enjoyed chemistry and I was doing well and I raised the idea of being a high school chemistry teacher. I remember the TA rolled his eyes and said, “There’s so many things you could do in chemistry”. That’s when he put me in touch with Earl Huyser, who suggested I work with Al Burgstahler and his laboratory and things and explained some of the opportunities that were available and then sort of followed my progression through college from that point on. There are so many people at KU that have this science, technical ability, scholarship, and openness that is an opportunities that they would present that was unbelievable. It was Earl Huyser and Al Burgstahler that I first worked with, but down the hall was Dick Showen and his group and Ralph Adams and his group. And then, of course, the giants in the area at the time were Ed Smithman and Taguchi on campus. And then there were people like Ron Borchardt who were young rising stars that had this enthusiasm and quality about them that is just inspiring. So, it was really, in many ways, a perfect place to have my interests cultivated and ultimately shepherded along or mentored along.

Oh, there were so many. I think it was, you know, late-night visit to Joe’s. I don't know if it's, I think it was called Joe's Pastries. Probably not there anymore, but there was a pastry shop that was open late so that you could go midnight and get up, get donuts. That does sound right. We have Munchers now, which I don't know how long they've been around, but Joe's sounds familiar I think. He's right there on 9th Street, actually. That's where Muncher's is at. I think there may be some connection there. I think it was called Joe's Pastry, but I might have been wrong, but it was a pastry shop. It wasn't what it's called today, but it was a pastry shop. There was a place called Hole in the Wall. It had the best sandwiches in the world in a little tiny, small place also on 9th Street. Those were just great memories of being able to do off campus activities that were fun. Basketball, of course, you know, I'm a diehard KU basketball fan and now get a chance to be a diehard football fan as well. So, with some pride again that they had back in those days. But in chemistry, it is something that in the end was of great value to me. So, I mean, I worked seven days a week. Just for the love of it, not because Al Burgstahler was asking me to be there and things. It was just being given an opportunity to do something I love and had a chance to develop it early on. And of course, I was naive, but what they did for me was unbelievable: the training, the mentoring, and then helping shape my career as to where I would go and what I would ultimately do based on my own interests was remarkable.

The one I am enjoying the most is yard work. That sounds strange, but I always joke with my wife that if it had not been chemistry, I might have been a gardener. It’s a little seasonal job in Kansas, but out here in California, it’s a job that you can have year-round. But we have grandchildren and it’s surprising as it is great-grandchildren as well. We had a house built on a lake out in Kansas, and we go back there quite often, and then it became the grandchildren and now great-grandchildren that also live in the area. And we get a chance to spoil them with eh travels there. So that’s probably where we spend most of our time. If it’s an opportunity to do something outside of work, it’s probably spent there. But there’s always things in San Diego to explore. On Sunday Afternoons, my wife and I go on a dive into an area of San Diego that we’ve never been and then look for a restaurant and just stop in and try it. We’ve discovered some great restaurants through the years out here that are hidden gems, family run restaurants and things like that.