Ken Raymond

Efforts toward the development of siderophore-inspired gadolinium(III) chelates began in the 1980s and have led to several promising compounds for magnetic resonance imaging. These compounds are both more stable and have a higher relaxivity than commercially available compounds and are the subject of several patents. Hexadentate hydroxypyridinone (HOPO) and terephthalamide (TAM) oxygen donor chelators allow high thermodynamic stability of complexes while allowing for two-three water molecules to be directly coordinated to the lanthanide. Research has focused on macromolecular conjugation in recent years, including a collaboration with Jean Fréchet and dendrimers developed in his laboratory.

Raymond received an appointment to the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967 as an assistant professor. He became an associate professor in 1974 and a full professor of chemistry in 1978. He has served as Vice Chair for the Berkeley Chemistry Department (1982−1984) and Chair (1993−1996). He was Chair of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry in 1996.

Kenneth Norman Raymond (born January 7, 1942) is a bioinorganic and coordination chemist. He is Chancellor's Professor of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley, Professor of the Graduate School, the Director of the Seaborg Center in the Chemical Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the President and Chairman of Lumiphore.

Raymond was born on January 7, 1942, in Astoria, Oregon, and was raised in various towns in Oregon. After graduating from Clackamas High School in 1959, he spent a year in Germany where he worked as a test-driver for Volkswagen and developed a taste for German culture. He then attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where he majored in Chemistry and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1964. Raymond then attended Northwestern University where he studied coordination chemistry and crystallography, under Fred Basolo, and also worked closely with James A. Ibers, earning his Ph.D. degree in 1968.