60 The Israel Chemist and Chemical Engineer Issue 9 · January 2023 · Tevet 5783 Report Judea and Samaria in Ariel (now Ariel University) opened the Department of Chemical Sciences, Shimon was appointed as its first Chair. He took early retirement from Tel Aviv University for that mission, raised funds, obtained scientific equipment, and recruited faculty and graduate students. He established a collaboration program with scientists from BarUniversity for joint guidance of graduate students at Ariel. Shimon served as the ICS President from 1993-1996. For Shatzi’s profile in Issue 6 of the ICE magazine, see https:// www.chemistry.org.il/resources/ice/ . The 2021 ICS Gold Medal was awarded to Prof. Lia Addadi and Prof. Steve Weiner of the Department of Chemical and Structural Biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science, for their joint research on biomineralization, for discovering phenomenal properties of mineralized biological materials, and inspiring scientists worldwide in material science, biomedicine, and climate engineering. Lia Addadi was born in Padova, Italy (1950), and obtained an MSc in Chemistry from Padova University. She immigrated to Israel in 1973 and received her PhD from the Weizmann Institute (1979) under Prof. Meir Lahav, working on solid-state organic chemistry, stereochemistry, and chiral crystals. Following a postdoc at Harvard University with Prof. Jeremy R. Knowles, Lia joined the Weizmann Institute, studying biomineralization with Steve Weiner since 1983. In collaboration with Meir Lahav and Leslie Leiserowitz, she studied the relations between crystal structure, crystal morphology, and molecular chirality. She has demonstrated that antibodies can selectively recognize crystals and nowadays studies the formation of cholesterol crystals in atherosclerosis, the leading cause of heart attack and stroke. Lia served as the WIS Dean of Chemistry (2001-2004) and Dean of the Feinberg Graduate School (2008-2013). Her long list of awards includes the 1989 ICS Young Scientist prize, the 1996 NIDR prize, the 1998 Prelog medal in Stereochemistry, the 2006 Kolthoff prize, the 2007 Spiers Medal of the RSC, the 2009 ICS Prize of Excellence, the 2011 Gregori Aminoff Prize, and 2018 Honorary Doctorate from ETH. In 2017, she was elected Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and in 2019 she became a Foreign Associate to the American Philosophical Society. She has published about 300 research papers with nearly 40,000 citations and h-index of 95. Steve Weiner was born in Pretoria, South Africa (1948). He obtained his BSc in chemistry and geology from the University of Cape Town, MSc in oceanography from the Hebrew University (1972), and PhD from CalTech (1977) under Profs. Heinz Lowenstam and Lee Hood, working on mollusk shell formation. He joined the Weizmann Institute in 1977. His book, “On Biomineralization,” coauthored with it a ready-to-use growing medium. CompoChar™ is produced from local, renewable organic raw materials. The company is also developing a set of activated carbon for chemical adsorption. The 2021HonorableMember of the ICS was awarded to Prof. Shimon Shatzmiller of Ariel University for his extensive contributions to academic research in organic synthesis, national security through extended military service, and chemical industry research and development. Shimon Shatzmiller (Shatzi) was born in 1942 in Nesher, Israel. From 1960-1964, he studied chemistry at the Technion as part of the academic military reserve program. Following graduation with honors, he served in the IDF (1964-1967). Immediately after being accepted to the MSc program at the Technion, he was called up back to the army for the SixDay War, serving as an artillery officer on the Syrian front. After the war, he married Shoshana Meirovich, with whom he has three children, Ronit, Noa, and Yonatan. Following his MSc with Prof. Eli Loewenthal, he continued in the same group, researching gibberellic acid synthesis. In 1971, he joined the group of Prof. Albert Eschenmoser at ETH, Zurich, as a postdoctoral fellow. When the Yom Kippur War broke out in October 1973, Shimon returned to Israel to fight as an artillery officer on the Syrian front. In the same year, he accepted a lecturer position at Tel Aviv University. His group developed synthetic methodologies involving chloronitrones, and unique carbonyl intermediates, such as 2-acetyl cations and nitrogen derivatives of carbonyl compounds. They discovered amidation reactions with minimal racemization, which yielded antibiotic pentapeptides. Many of his students became independent scientists in the Israeli pharmaceutical industry. Shimon was a visiting professor at the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Society, collaborating with Prof. Richard Neidlein on pharmaceutical chemistry, and at the Africans University, Johannesburg. From 1984-1990, on a sabbatical leave and multiple visits to DuPont’s molecular biology lab in Wilmington, Delaware, he worked with Dr. Pat Confalone on drug synthesis, leading to new syntheses of the Losartan for the treatment of hypertension and Sustiva for the treatments of Aids. From 1990-1996, Shimon joined IMI-TAMI, the research campus of Israel Chemicals Ltd (ICL), as a Research Director and Head of the organic division, continuing his university position. He introduced new projects and products, such as fire retardants for plastics, collaborating with Bromine Compounds Ltd. He also established the Novotide division in collaboration with Teva Pharmaceuticals for developing therapeutic peptides. In 1995, after many years of service as an Artillery officer, he was discharged with the rank of reserve brigadier general (Tat-Aluf ). In 1998, when the College of
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