A native of Wales, Huw Davies went to the University of East Anglia, England, where he received his PhD in organic chemistry. It was in New Jersey, however, where he moved for a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton, that he found his career path.

“I started working with a dirhodium catalyst,” recalls Davies, “and I was impressed with how it did carbene reactions so cleanly. It was incredibly reactive and well-behaved. I decided to focus my career on it because I thought it was going to be a game-changer.”

His gut reaction, combined with his willingness to seek out new methods for doing chemistry, paid off. Davies went on to lead the development of a series of dirhodium catalysts that speed up, simplify and expand the possibilities of organic chemistry, setting the stage for the synthesis of new molecules.

The American Chemical Society recently selected Davies to receive its 2019 Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods. Four of the 21 previous winners of the prestigious award have received Nobel Prizes, and all of them are considered superstars in their field.

“It’s a great honor to be included among them,” says Davies, who joined Emory in 2008 as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Chemistry.

In 1996, Davies patented his first powerful catalyst made from dirhodium, crystallized into a helix. Rhodium, a member of the platinum group, is one of the rarest and most valuable precious metals. The catalyst, however, generates reactions so efficiently that less than an ounce of the catalytic material could theoretically be used to create a ton of synthesized product. That makes it highly scalable and cost-effective for drug production.

The Davies lab at Emory University. The Davies lab at Emory.

Shortly after joining Emory, Davies became the founding director of the National Science Foundation’s Center for Selective C-H Functionalization (CCHF), a consortium based at Emory and encompassing 15 major research universities from across the country as well as industrial partners.

Traditionally, organic chemistry has focused on the division between reactive molecular bonds and the inert bonds carbon-carbon (C-C) and carbon-hydrogen (C-H). The inert bonds provide a strong, stable scaffold for performing chemical synthesis with the reactive groups. C-H functionalization flips this model on its head, making C-H bonds reactive.

The CCHF is leading this paradigm shift in the strategy of synthesis, which holds great promise for creating new pathways for drug discovery and the production of new materials to benefit everything from agriculture to electronics.

Watch a video about the formation of the NSF Center for Selective C-H Functionalization

“When you’re developing a new drug, it can be a big advantage not to do it the same way that everyone has for the past 100 years,” Davies says. “New methods can allow you to introduce new structures that lead to new potential drug candidates.”

Collectively, the CCHF has published more than 200 papers and developed dozens of new catalysts for C-H functionalization, including five major new dirhodium catalysts from the Davies lab.

The center is also revolutionizing the way that chemistry is researched and taught, breaking down the walls of individual labs and institutions to form collaborations and student exchanges that reach across the country and across continents.

Kathryn "Katie" Chepiga did research in Japan as an Emory graduate student. She published findings that C-H functionalization speeds synthesis in marine alkaloids from a sea sponge that have shown potential for drug therapies. Chepiga received her PhD in 2018 and now works at Bayer Pharmaceuticals in Germany. (Kay Hinton, Emory Photo/Video) Kathryn "Katie" Chepiga did research in Japan as an Emory graduate student. She published findings that C-H functionalization speeds synthesis in marine alkaloids from a sea sponge that have shown potential for drug therapies. Chepiga received her PhD in 2018 and now works at Bayer Pharmaceuticals in Germany. (Kay Hinton, Emory Photo/Video)

The NSF Science Across Virtual Institutes (SAVI) program this year awarded another $300,000 to the CCHF to continue its student exchange program, including labs in the United States, South Korea, Japan and Germany. Undergraduates, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows can participate in national and international exchanges, learning the techniques of other labs while bringing in new ideas of their own.

“We’ve got this incredible collaborative environment where organic chemists aren’t just sharing results —they’re sharing ideas,” Davies says. “That’s rare. And we’ve expanded that environment beyond our network of universities to also engage the pharmaceutical industry.”

The Herbert C. Brown Award is only the latest recognition of Davies’ groundbreaking career in organic synthesis. Other recent accolades for Davies include being named Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2007), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2009), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2015) and receiving the Paul Rylander Award from the Organic Reactions and Catalysis in Synthesis Society (2018).