William Price, Ph.D.

William A. Price is Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from The College of Wooster, and a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1993, he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Aveiro (Portugal) to research the synthesis of antitumor drugs. Additionally, he has had long-standing collaborations with researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Outside of the organic chemistry realm, Dr. Price has developed courses in Ethical Issues in Modern Science as well as a travel study course to Denmark and Sweden about climate change, renewable energy, and sustainability. In 2011, he was awarded the Distinguished Lasallian Educator locally for La Salle and nationally for the District of Eastern North America, given annually to an individual who honors the ideals of St. John Baptist de La Salle, the patron saint of teachers and the founder of the Christian Brothers, the order that started La Salle.

Areas of Expertise

• Organic Synthesis: Dr. Price and his students are involved in the preparation of compounds that are of interest to the pharmaceutical and medicinal communities.  Recent work includes the design and synthesis of radiosensitizers as anti-tumor agents (collaboration with Fox Chase Cancer Center), as well as small molecules that allow for in the study of disease predisposition and prevention (a collaboration with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia).
• Bioethics: Dr. Price is interested in studies involving the interweaving of rapidly advancing science and technology with the profound ethical and religious issues that are associated with these discoveries.
• Sustainability and Climate Change: Dr. Price studies the interplay between the population, energy use, fresh water and food availability and the ever-changing climate (teaches a travel-study course on this topic to Denmark and Sweden).

Education

• Ph.D., 1985, University of Maryland, College Park
• B.A., 1981, The College of Wooster

Teaching

• CHM 161, Chemistry for the Life Sciences
• CHM 201-202, Organic Chemistry I and II
• CHM 320, Advanced Organic Laboratory Methods
• HON 365, Brave New World: Ethical Issues in Modern Science

Research

Publications

William A. Price, Alexander Abud, Robert Dyer, Matthais Zeller, and Allen Hunter, “Finding NEMA’s vinyl protons: Unusual chemical shift variability in 1H NMR spectra at low concentrations”, Abstracts of the 244th National Meeting of the American Chemical                 Society, Philadelphia, PA, August 22, 2012.

W.A. Price, C.C. Stobbe, S.-J. Park, and J.D. Chapman, “Radiosensitization of tumour cells by cantharidin and some analogues”, Int. J. Radiat. Biol., 2004, 80, 269-279.

Richard F. Schneider, William A. Price, and J. Donald Chapman, “Exchange radio-iodination produces inversion at C-4 of 1-(4-deoxy-4-iodo-b-D-xylopranosyl)-2-nitroimidazole”, J. Labelled Cpd. Radiopharm., 2002, 45, 665-673.

Yen K. Lieu, Betty Y. L. Hsu, William A. Price, Barbara E. Corkey, and Charles A. Stanley, “Carnitine effects on coenzyme A profiles in rat liver with hypoglycin inhibition of multiple dehydrogenases”, Am. J. Physiol. 272 (Endocrinol. Metab. 35): E359-E366, 1997.

James A. Sweet, Jennifer M. Cavallari, William A. Price, Joseph W. Ziller, and Dominic V. McGrath, “Synthesis and Characterization of New Amine-Imine Ligands Based on trans-2,5-Disubstituted Pyrrolidines”, Tetrahedron Asym., 1997, 8, 207-211.

William A. Price, “Effective Incorporation of FT-NMR Spectroscopy into the Junior-Year Synthetic Methods Course”, Abstracts of the 212th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Orlando FL, August 27, 1996.