Royal Society of Chemistry Welcomes Its First Duquesne Professor

The latest accolade for Dr. Partha Basu, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is to be named Duquesne’s first Fellow in the Royal Society of Chemistry, whose roots extend to when Victoria was queen.

Basu, who can now use the designation FRSC, joins just six other Pittsburghers as fellows of the society, who were selected for their outstanding contributions to the field. The Royal Society of Chemistry is the United Kingdom’s professional organization and Europe’s largest group for advancing the chemical sciences by working with industry, and academic and government agencies.

Teaching at Duquesne since 1998, Basu has produced about 100 peer-reviewed publications, including work that studied the potential health impacts of using an arsenic derivative in chicken feed. Subsequently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rescinded use of this additive in chicken feed.

“As much as we do translational research, we work on fundamental aspects of science,” Basu said. “We try to answer, ‘How does a chemical system work? Why does a molecule function the way it does?’ This curiosity-driven work sometimes can lead to practical applications and fills a gap in our knowledge. I am very humbled to be acknowledged as a contributor adding to knowledge in the field.”

Among Basu’s three patents is a compound that glows when it detects lead. This compound’s commercial potential recently turned Basu into a budding entrepreneur as well as an academic. He was selected to participate in Innovation Works’ university technology commercialization program that ultimately can lead to a spin-off company around this compound.

Recognized internationally for his work in understanding the roles of metal ions in biological processes, Basu has served as editor and on the editorial boards of academic publications around the globe, including the editorial advisory board on metallomics for the Royal Society. Additionally, he has served on study sections of the National Institutes of Health and on the National Science Foundation’s enzymes and metalloproteins panel.

Basu has received both the Duquesne University Presidential Award and the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences Award for Excellence in Scholarship, and has been inducted into the University’s Office of Research Hall of Fame. A member of the American Chemical Society, the Spectroscopy Society of Pittsburgh and the Society of Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, Basu has supervised more than a dozen theses and mentored students from high schoolers to post-docs.

With this honor, Duquesne’s chemistry department has four of 15 eligible faculty members selected as fellows of the world’s major chemical societies, according to Department Chair Dr. Ralph Wheeler, an American Chemical Society Fellow himself.

“Prestigious honors such as these illustrate the Bayer School’s dedication to the Duquesne teacher-scholar model, joining great scholarship with effective teaching,” said Dr. Philip Reeder, dean of the Bayer School. “We congratulate Partha on this outstanding achievement.”