The ACS International Award for Research in Agrochemicals is given to a scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of agrochemicals at the international level. Their vision and sustained contributions will have opened new horizons for other investigators in their field and beyond. Nominations are now being sought for the 2022 Award winner to be presented at the ACS Fall 2023 National Meeting in San Francisco, California. This award includes an honorarium of $5000 USD. Deadline for nominations is December 31, 2022. For details on the nomination process, see the the Call for Nominations.
For more information, please contact Qing Li, AGRO Awards Committee Chair, 808-956-2011.
2022 Award Recipient
Jeffrey G. Scott is being recognized for his work on insecticide resistance and insect toxicology. He received his B.S. in biochemistry from Michigan State University (MSU) and M.S. degree in entomology also from MSU working with Professor Fumio Matsumura studying the mode of action of pyrethroid and cyclodiene insecticides. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside, working with Professor George Georghiou and studying the biochemistry and genetics of pyrethroid resistance in house flies. His work at Riverside also included collaborations with Professors Tom Miller, Roy Fukuto, and Toshio Shono.
Jeffrey was a postdoctoral associate studying the mode of action and metabolism of bicycloorthocarboxylate insecticides with John Casida at University of California, Berkeley. He then joined the Department of Entomology at Cornell and was promoted to full professor in 1998. His work has focused on diverse areas including insect toxicology, insecticide resistance, pest control, and the evolution of sex determination in house flies. From 2013 – 2015 he spearheaded the global effort to sequence and annotate the house fly genome.
Increased detoxification of insecticides is a major mechanism of resistance, but the large number of genes coding for enzymes capable of insecticide metabolism in any given species is large, making identification of the specific protein (or gene coding for the protein) a significant challenge. Jeffrey’s research group has tackled this problem with protein purification, heterologous expression, RNAi, genetics, molecular biology, proteomics and transcriptomic analyses. His lab was the first to purify (to a high specific content) a single P450 from an insect and identify how a mutation in the CYP6D1v1 promoter increased expression of this protein leading to pyrethroid resistance.
An important mechanism by which insects evolve resistance is due to changes in the target site of the insecticide. His group has actively pursued this line of research across multiple classes of insecticides (organochlorines, cyclodienes, organophosphates, carbamates, pyrethroids, neonicotinoids, spinosyns, etc.) and has documented both the nature of the mutations involved and the frequency of these mutations in different populations. Jeffrey also made significant contributions to our understanding of the population genetics of resistance and to our understanding of the fitness costs of insecticide resistance. His group has successfully used molecular tools to genotype individual insects that has revolutionized our understanding of these aspects of insecticide resistance.
In recognition of his research achievements, Jeffrey has received numerous awards, including Fellow of the Entomological Society of America and the Recognition Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry and Physiology from the Entomological Society of America.
In addition to his research Professor Scott has regularly taught two classes dealing with pesticides: Pesticides, Human Health, and the Environment and Insecticide Toxicology. Numerous graduate students, undergraduates, postdocs and visiting scientists have received training in the Scott lab which has been funded primarily by the NIH and USDA.
Past Awardees
2021
David B. Satelle, University College London, London, UK
2020
Qing X. Li, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa, Hawai‘i
2019
Vincent L. Salgado, BASF, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
2018
Stephen Powles, University of Western Australia, Australia
2017
Jeffrey Bloomquist, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
2016
Yoshihisa Ozoe, Shimane University, Japan
2015
Keith D. Wing, formerly of Rohm and Haas and DuPont Crop Protection, Wilmington, DE
2014
Ralf Nauen, Bayer CropScience, Monheim, Germany
2013
René Feyereisen, National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA), France
2012
Thomas C. Sparks, Dow AgroSciences, Indianapolis, IN
2011
George P. Lahm, DuPont Crop Science, Newark, Delaware
2010
Shinzo Kagabu, Gifu University, Gifu, Japan
2009
R. Donald Wauchope, USDA-ARS (retired), Tifton, Georgia
2008
David M. Soderlund, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
2007
Gerald T. Brooks, University of Sussex (retired), Brighton, UK
2007
Fredrick J. Perlak, Monsanto, St. Louis, Missouri
2006
Joel Coats, Iowa State University, Ames
2006
Isamu Yamaguchi, Agricultural Chemicals Inspection Station, Tokyo, Japan
2005
Robert Krieger, University of California-Riverside
2005
Janice E. Chambers, Mississippi State University, Starkville
2004
Stephen Duke, USDA-ARS, Oxford, Mississippi
2004
John Marshall Clark, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
2003
Hideo Ohkawa, Kobe University, Japan
2003
Bob Hollingworth, Michigan State University, East Lansing
2002
Marinus Los, American Cyanamid, Princeton, New Jersey
2002
Keith Solomon, University of Guelph, Canada
2001
Ralph Mumma, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
2001
Donald Crosby, University of California-Davis
2000
Herbert B. Scher, Zeneca, Richmond, California
2000
George P. Georghiou, University of California-Riverside
1999
James Seiber, University of Nevada-Reno
1999
Don Baker, Zeneca, Richmond, California
1998
Leslie Crombie, University of Nottingham, England
1998
George Levitt, DuPont, Wilmington, Delaware
1997
Izuru Yamamoto, University of Tokyo, Japan
1997
Fritz Führ, Institute of Chemistry and Dynamic, Jülich, Germany
1996
Klaus Naumann, Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany
1996
Günther Voss, Ciba, Basel, Switzerland
1995
Mohyee Eldefrawi, University of Maryland-Baltimore
1995
Koji Nakanishi, Columbia University, New York, New York
1994
Toshio Fujita, Kyoto University, Japan
1993
Morifusa Eto, Kyushu University, Fukoka, Japan
1992
Bruce Hammock, University of California-Davis
1991
Stuart Frear, USDA-ARS, Fargo, North Dakota
1990
David Schooley, University of Nevada-Reno
1989
Toshio Narahashi, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
1988
Ernest Hodgson, North Carolina State University
1987
Fumio Matsumura, Michigan State University, East Lansing
1986
James Tumlinson, USDA-ARS, Gainesville, Florida
1985
Junshi Miyamoto, Sumitomo Chemical Co., Japan
1984
Jacques Jean Martel, Roussel Uclaf, Paris, France
1983
Karl Heinz Buechel, Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany
1982
Jack R. Plimmer, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, Maryland
1981
Philip C. Kearney, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, Maryland
1980
Minoru Nakajima, Kyoto University, Japan
1979
Milton S. Schechter, USDA-ARS (retired), Beltsville, Maryland
1978
Julius J. Menn, Stauffer Chemical Co., Mountain View, California
1977
Francis A. Gunther, University of California-Riverside
1976
Morton Beroza, USDA-ARS (retired), Beltsville, Maryland
1975
Michael Elliot, Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden, England
1974
T. Roy Fukuto, University of California-Riverside
1973
Hubert Martin, British Crop Protection Council, London, England
1972
Ralph L. Wain, Wye College, University of London,England
1971
Robert L. Metcalf, University of Illinois, Champagne-Urban
1970
Richard D. O’Brien, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
1969
John E. Casida, University of California-Berkley