Samuel J. Danishefsky (born March 10, 1936) is an Americanchemist working as a professor at bothColumbia University and theMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center inNew York City.^[2]

Samuel J. Danishefsky was born in 1936 in theUnited States. He completed his B.S. fromYeshiva University in 1956. He earned his Ph.D. inchemistry fromHarvard University in 1962 withPeter Yates, which partially overlapped with a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory ofGilbert Stork atColumbia University.^[3]

After completing his PhD, he became professor at theUniversity of Pittsburgh, where he eventually attained the rank of University Professor and taught until 1979. From 1979 to 1993, he was a professor atYale University, where he rose to the rank ofSterling Professor of Chemistry. By 1991 he was sharing his time with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center as director of the Laboratory for Cancer Research Bioorganic Chemistry, becoming chair in 1993. He accepted an appointment as professor at Columbia University in 1993, and now splits his time between Columbia and Sloan-Kettering.

Samuel J. Danishefsky is known for his role in synthesizing many complex organic compounds, many of which are related to pharmaceuticals. Among the molecules synthesized by Danishefsky at Columbia University areepothilones andcalicheamicin, which are natural products with promise as anti-cancer agents.

The Danishefsky Taxol total synthesis was the third synthesis oftaxol, a highly topical natural product.^[4] Together with theHolton Taxol total synthesis and theNicolaou Taxol total synthesis, these multistep sequences illustrate the state of the art intotal synthesis.

In 1995/96 he shared theWolf Prize in Chemistry withGilbert Stork ofColumbia University for "designing and developing novel chemical reactions which have opened new avenues to the synthesis of complex molecules, particularly polysaccharides and many other biologically and medicinally important compounds".^[5]

He is the recipient of several other awards including the American Chemical Society's Guenther Award and Aldrich Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, theF.A. Cotton Medal for Excellence in Chemical Research of theAmerican Chemical Society, theTetrahedron Prize (1996), theArthur C. Cope Award (1998), the New York City Mayor's Award for Science and Technology, and the Bristol Myers Squibb Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was awarded theBenjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry for his achievements in synthetic organic chemistry, particularly for the development of methods for preparing complex substances found in nature, and their emerging applications in the field of cancer treatment.^[6] He is a member of the Board of Scientific Governors atThe Scripps Research Institute. He holds an honorary doctorate fromYeshiva University.

• Danishefsky Taxol total synthesis
• Pancratistatin

• The Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1995/96
• Samuel J. Danishefsky

• 1936 births
• 21st-century American chemists
• Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
• Yeshiva University alumni
• Columbia University alumni
• Columbia University faculty
• University of Pittsburgh faculty
• Yale Sterling Professors
• Wolf Prize in Chemistry laureates
• Living people
• Scripps Research
• Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
• Jewish American scientists
• Jewish chemists
• American organic chemists
• Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates

• CS1 maint: archived copy as title
• Webarchive template wayback links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles with hCards