Jonathan Sweedler was recently voted the 2019 winner of CASSS Award for Outstanding Achievements in Separation Science. His contributions to capillary electrophoresis, detection methods for CE, and applications of CE, especially to single cell analysis have advanced neuroscience by providing deep information on neuropeptide processing and the role of D-amino acids, among other areas, at the single neuron level.
The award will be presented at the 49th International Symposium on High Performance Liquid Phase Separations and Related Techniques (HPLC) in December 2019 in Kyoto, Japan. CASSS gives this prestigious honor annually in recognition of outstanding contributions to separation science and technology, with particular consideration given to developments of new methods and techniques.
Professor Sweedler is the James R. Eiszner Family Endowed Chair in Chemistry and Director in the School of Chemical Sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he has been on faculty since 1991. Sweedler has been at the forefront of developing sample preparation and separation methods for single cells by CE. He is also preeminent at coupling CE to information rich detectors such as wavelength resolved-fluorescence, MS, radiochemical detection, and, most amazingly, NMR. Each of these developments required elaborate innovations to achieve sufficient sensitivity for single cell work and other applications.
In addition to serving as Editor-in-Chief of Analytical Chemistry, Sweedler has been the recipient of many awards, including:
- ANACHEM Award, Federation of Analytical and Spectroscopy Societies
- Malcom E. Pruitt Award, Council for Chemical Research
- The Analytical Chemistry Award, The American Chemical Society
- Ralph N. Adams Award, The Pittsburgh Conference
- Fellow of the American Chemical Society
Professor Sweedler received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of California at Davis in 1983, and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1989. Thereafter, he was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University before joining the faculty at Illinois in 1991. His research interests are in bioanalytical chemistry, and focus on developing new methods for assaying the chemistry occurring in nanoliter-volume samples, and applying these analytical methods to characterize the molecular forms, distribution, and dynamic release of neurotransmitters and neuropeptides from a range of animal models.