The Sigman Lectureship Award was established in 2002 to honor the memory of David S. Sigman, Ph.D., Professor in the Departments of Biological Chemistry and Chemistry and Biochemistry, and a charter member and former Associate Director of the Molecular Biology Institute.  He was a  leader in the field of chemical biology and discovered chemical nucleases in a career that illuminated the molecular mechanisms of catalysis.

Born in New York City in 1939, he graduated magna cum laude from Oberlin College in Chemistry in 1960.  He received his Ph.D. in 1965 from Harvard.  After postdoctoral work, he served briefly as an instructor at Harvard before joining the UCLA faculty in 1968.

Professor Sigman's research bridged the fields of organic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology.  He was one of the founding members of UCLA's Molecular Biology Institute, serving as its associate director from 1994-2001.  He was a large part of the collegial glue that held our biomedical community together.  As the guru for biooganic chemistry, he was a dedicated mentor of younger scientists.  He died November 11, 2001, at the age of 62, after a two-and-a-half-year battle with brain cancer.  His wit, insight, and creativity are greatly missed!

A permanently endowed fund for the annual award was made possible by contributions from over 200 of David's colleagues, friends, and family, as well as corporate donations from the Amgen Foundation, Eli Lilly and Company, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, and Raytheon Systems Company.  Contributions to help support the permanent endowment should be made out to the "UC Regents/Sigman Memorial Fund," and sent to The Sigman Fund, MBI Administrative Office, UCLA, PO Box 95170, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1570.