"We select as targets interesting molecules which are structurally challenging, or unstable, or have some important biological activities," said Kende, a synthetic organic chemist at the University of Rochester.
"I like to pick targets that make me say, 'Gee, that's an interesting structure and I haven't the foggiest idea how to make it,'" he said. "That's the most fun, because then your brain really kicks in and starts getting creative."
While Kende is known among chemists for discovering dozens of rearrangement reactions — in which starting materials form completely unexpected products — he is better known to the public for his work with dioxins, harmful byproducts of Agent Orange and some incineration processes. First with Rochester colleague Alan Poland, then with Tom Gasiewicz, Kende showed how dioxin's chemical structure relates to its toxic effects.
At Rochester, Kende has also teamed up with Barbara Iglewski to recreate in the laboratory certain compounds bacteria use to communicate each other. Called autoinducers, the chemical signals activate the bacteria's growth or, as with infection, their attack on the body.
"We now have several patents which teach how one might block such autoinducers, preventing bacteria from signaling and thereby retarding the attack phase," said Kende.
Kende, whose family originates in Hungary, said it was his mother who first told him about elements and compounds as he was growing up. As a teenager he was national winner of the Westinghouse (now Intel) Science Talent Search, a nationwide contest for scientific achievement among high school students.
Kende received his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago in 1951 and his doctorate from Harvard University in 1957. He has authored some 250 scientific articles during his 45-year career. Kende is a member of the ACS divisions of organic chemistry and chemical information, and he has been editor of several professional journals.
The ACS Board of Directors established the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Awards in 1984 to recognize and encourage excellence in organic chemistry. Cope was a celebrated organic chemist and ACS president. Each award consists of a $5,000 prize as well as an unrestricted research grant of $40,000.