A MILESTONE FOR MEDI

Abstract

IN 1909, during the 40th American Chemical Society national meeting in Detroit, members of the society’s pharmaceutical chemistry interest section voted unanimously to request that ACS Council establish a Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Today, the Division of Medicinal Chemistry (MEDI) is one of ACS’s largest divisions, with nearly 10,000 members. The division changed its name in 1920 to the Division of Chemistry of Medicinal Products to reflect its changing membership and the growth of the field of medicinal chemistry. It adopted its current name in 1928. MEDI’s evolution and its achievements over the past 100 years were the focus of a centennial celebration symposium during the fall ACS national meeting in Washington, D.C. During his opening talk, Patrick M. Woster, secretary of MEDI and a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Wayne State University, described the early days of the division. “The division at its inception was really not what we think of today as medicinal ...