Heinz G. Floss
President (1977-1978), Farnsworth Award (1988), Fellow (2006)
University of Washington
Heinz Floss was born and raised in Berlin, Germany. He received degrees of Diplomchemiker
(M.S., 1959) from the Technical University Berlin and Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D., 1961) from the
Technical University Munich, where he stayed for another 5 years to complete his
“Habilitation.” During this time he was a postdoctoral researcher with Eric
E. Conn at the Univ. California at Davis (1964−1965). In 1966, he joined
Purdue University where he rose through the ranks to become Head of the
Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy and Lilly
Distinguished Professor. In 1982 he joined The Ohio State University as
Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, and in 1987 he moved
to the University of Washington, where, since 2000, he has been Professor
Emeritus of Chemistry. He joined the ASP in 1967, the Editorial Board of
Lloydia in 1971. As president, he pushed for expanding the scope of the
ASP beyond the traditional focus on higher plant natural products. In 1988 he was the second
recipient of the Research Achievement Award. He has published over 400 papers in the field of
natural product biosynthesis and trained over 100 Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows, many
of whom now hold prominent academic positions throughout the world. Among other
recognitions, he received the Volwiler Award of the AACP, a Humboldt Senior Scientist Award,
and he holds honorary doctorates from Purdue and from the Univ. Bonn, Germany. (HGF)