Biographical Statement

Professor Michael B. Smith was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1946. In 1957, he and his family moved to Madison Heights, Virginia. After graduation from Amherst County high school, he entered Ferrum Jr. College and graduated with an A.A. Professor Smith transferred to Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech), where he did undergraduate research with Professor Harold Bell, and graduated with a B.S in chemistry in 1969. After working as an analytical chemist at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. (Tenneco) in Newport News, Virginia for three years, he began graduate studies at Purdue University under the mentorship of Professor Joseph Wolinsky. Professor Smith graduated with a Ph.D. in Organic chemistry in 1977. He spent one year as a faculty research associate at the Arizona State University in the Cancer Research Institute, directed by Professor George R. Pettit, and a second year doing postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the mentorship of Professor Sidney Hecht. In 1979 he began his independent academic career, where he now holds the rank of full professor.

Professor Smith is the author of approximately 90 independent research articles, and 20 published books. The books include the 5th and 6th edition of March's Advanced Organic Chemistry (Wiley), volumes 6–12 of the Compendium of Organic Synthetic Methods (Wiley), Organic Chemistry a Two Semester Course (HarperCollins) into its 2nd edition, and Organic Synthesis (Elsevier) in its 3rd edition. A new undergraduate organic chemistry book, Organic Chemistry: An Acid-Base Approach, was published in 2011 by the CRC Press.

Professor Smith's current research involves the synthesis and structural verification of lipids obtained from the dental pathogen Porphyromonas gingivalis, which show inflammatory activity, induce bone degeneration and are involved in triggering multiple sclerosis. A main area of research is the synthesis of fluorescent dye-heterocyclic conjugates that target hypoxic cancerous tumors, allowing non-invasive fluorescence imaging in the near IR. The synthesis of anti-cancer alkaloids is also ongoing.