Nobel Prize

The achievements awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry demonstrate how the secret to constructing synthetic versions of chemicals from scratch is to work backwards. Elias Corey developed and refined a novel, reverse approach to synthesizing organic compounds – that is, compounds that contain carbon atoms – and in the process he transformed this discipline…

  Editors: Solgerd Björn-Rasmussen and Margareta Wiberg Roland, Information Department, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Author: Dr Olof Wennerström, Department of Organic Chemistry, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden Illustrator: Karin Feltzin, Stockholm, Sweden Printed by: Tryckindustri AB, Solna 1990 Copyright © , Information Department, Box 50005, S-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden, Tel. +46-8-673 95…

Retrosynthetic analysis can be compared to the climbing of a tree. You are at the root of the tree (the target molecule) and want to climb to the top branches (the starting materials). The tree branches off many times. You have to choose your way! Which way is the fastest, the easiest and the most…

In order to develop the logic of organic synthesis, a thorough knowledge of the individual chemical reactions which make up a method of synthesis is required. New types of organic reactions are constantly being invented all over the world and give rise to new methods. Many of these have been created and developed by E.J.…

E.J. Corey, X.-M. Cheng: The Logic of Chemical Synthesis, Wiley – Interscience, 1989. E.J. Corey, A.K. Long, S.D. Rubenstein: Computer-Assisted Analysis in Organic Synthesis, Science, Vol 228, 1985, pp 408-418. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, (press release).  

Products such as plastics, synthetic fibres, paints and pigments, pharmaceuticals and pesticides and many others have become readily available through the dynamic development of organic synthesis (the science of building organic molecules).     There are many ways to build a complex molecule from simple starting materials but to find the simplest way is often difficult. It…

Contents: Based on materials from the 1990 Nobel Poster for Chemistry.

Many organic molecules are three-dimensional and can exist in two mirror image forms, one left handed and one right handed. A synthesis gives, in general, equal amounts of the two mirror image forms of the molecule. These might have completely different biological activity. Natural products, i.e. chemicals found in Nature, are usually either “left- or…

The history of organic synthesis starts with the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler who, in 1828, succeeded to make urea from simple materials. This was the first time when organic (=living) matter was produced from inorganic (=dead) matter. This was not believed to be possible, at the time.      By the end of the nineteenth century…

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