Mark Taylor wins IntelliSyn Pharma Research Excellence Award

March 26, 2021 by Dan Haves

Professor Mark Taylor is the winner of the 2021 IntelliSyn Pharma Research Excellence Award. This honour, formerly known as the Boehringer Ingelheim Research Excellence Award, is presented by the Chemical Institute of Canada to a scientist residing in Canada who has made a distinguished contribution to medicinally relevant organic or biophysical chemistry.

Prof. Taylor is among Canada’s outstanding chemistry researchers. He has built an innovative research program in molecular recognition and catalysis, gaining insight into the ways that molecules interact with each other, and discovering new modes of reactivity for catalyst-controlled chemical transformations of sugars.

A leader in the study of noncovalent interactions involving electron-deficient halogens and chalcogens, his work has revealed trends in the strengths of such interactions, and showed for the first time that they could be used to design receptor molecules for host-guest binding. It sparked a surge of new applications ranging from catalysis to drug design: four of his publications in this area have more than 150 citations.