Penicillin research earns prize for ex-UVa professor

By Aaron Lee

Published: January 6, 2009

A former University of Virginia professor will receive $500,000 for breakthrough work that has enabled the mass production of antibiotics and other drugs.

Elmer Gaden was told in October that he would receive the Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, but the announcement wasn’t made official until Monday.

Gaden, 84, retired from UVa in 1994.

The Russ prize is awarded each year to an engineer whose work was of “critical importance that contributes to improving the human condition,” according to Ohio University, where a 1999 donation established an endowment to pay for the prize given every two years.

Some of Gaden’s most notable work was discovering a way to bioengineer penicillin faster than previously possible. He also founded the research journal Biotechnology and Bioengineer-ing, the first publication of its kind. He served as its editor for 25 years.

“Gaden successfully melded engineering with biology, thereby forming the new scientific specialty, bioengineering,” Boyd Woodruff, former executive director of biological science for Merck Research Laboratories, said in a release announcing Gaden’s Russ award.

Donald Kirwan is a chemical engineering professor at UVa and worked with Gaden. Kirwan described Gaden as a skilled lecturer and “tireless” researcher.

“He had a joke, or story, to make any point he needed to make,” Kirwan said, adding that a colleague once said of Gaden, “He’s got a million stories and we’ve only heard half of them.”

Gaden and his wife, Jenny, said they are interested in donating part of the prize money to improving engineering education.

“Let’s just say we’re not going to get rich on this,” Elmer Gaden said.

Gaden is the fifth recipient of the award and was selected by a committee of officials from Ohio University and the National Academy of Engineering.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a World War II Navy veteran, Gaden graduated from Columbia University, where he later taught for 26 years.

He came to UVa in 1979 and stayed there until retiring. He lives in Charlottesville.