Michael Jung receives the ACS MEDI 2025 Edward E. Smissman Award

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Prof. Michael Jung

Distinguished Professor Michael E. Jung, the Walter and Shirley Wang Chair in Medicinal Drug Discovery, is named the recipient of the 2025 Edward E. Smissman Award, given by the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Medicinal Chemistry.

Jung receives the honor for his seminal work in synthetic medicinal chemistry and drug discovery.

This prestigious award will be presented to Jung at the 2025 Fall National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, DC, during the MEDI Awards Session on Sunday afternoon, August 17, 2025.

Known for his work in organic and medicinal chemistry, Jung collaborated with Dr. Charles Sawyers to design and synthesize enzalutamide (Xtandi), approved by the FDA in 2012, and apalutamide (Erleada), approved by the FDA in 2018, for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer and more recently castration-sensitive prostate cancer. He has co-founded 14 biotech companies and serves as a consultant or scientific advisory board member for several pharmaceutical and biotech firms. Currently four drugs from his lab are in phase 1 or phase 2 clinical trials. In 2024, Jung was inducted into the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame. His awards and honors also include the IUPAC-Richter Prize in Medicinal Chemistry in 2022 and the AACR Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research Award in 2019.

The Edward E. Smissman Award was established in honor of Professor Edward E. Smissman of the University of Kansas, on the occasion of his untimely death in 1974. The Smissman Award is presented in odd years by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry at the Fall National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. It is given to a living scientist whose research, teaching or service has had a substantial impact on the intellectual and theoretical development of the field of Medicinal Chemistry.

Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.