Donor Story - William R. Roush, Ph.D.

From California to Florida, Bill Roush's career as one of the world's leading synthetic chemists has circled back to The Scripps Research Institute, with intermediate stops at four other leading American academic institutions.

A native of Chula Vista, a town in San Diego County, Scripps Research's California home, Bill received his undergraduate degree, summa cum laude, from the University of California Los Angeles, where his major professor was Julius Rebek, Ph.D., who is now Director of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research. At Harvard University, where Bill earned his Ph.D., he was a colleague of Harry W. Orf, Ph.D., who today, 30 years later, serves as Vice President of Scientific Operations for Scripps Florida.

A scientist who advanced rapidly with one foot in the classroom and the other in commercial research, Bill joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as assistant professor, then moved to Indiana University — where he became Distinguished Professor of Chemistry while in his early 40s — before being appointed Warner Lambert/Parke Davis Professor of Chemistry at the University of Michigan. He was chairman of Michigan's nationally ranked chemistry department when he was recruited by Scripps Research to join Harry Orf in helping start the new Florida campus in 2004 as Professor of Chemistry, Executive Director of Medicinal Chemistry, and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies.

"The mind and character of Scripps Research are every bit as exciting as Harvard or MIT, institutions like Indiana and Michigan — where large endowments help pay for the kind of talent that requires competitive (and expensive) scholarships, fellowships, and named professorships," Bill says. "That is why my wife Rosalie and I made the additional commitment of writing my new institution into our will shortly after moving our family from Michigan to join Scripps Florida."

Bill Roush has made notable contributions on the design and synthesis of inhibitors of cysteine proteases isolated from important human pathogens, including Trypanosoma, Leishmania, and Plasmodium species — organisms responsible for epidemics of the third world being studied as targets for eradication at Scripps Florida. Like this work, his bequest to Scripps Research is a contribution to the common future of world science and humankind.