Elias James Corey

Elias Corey
Born 12 July 1928 (1928-07-12) (age 81)
Methuen, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality United States
Fields Organic chemistry
Known for Retrosynthetic analysis
Notable awards Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1986)
Japan Prize (1989)
Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1990)
Priestley Medal (2004)

Elias James Corey (born July 12, 1928) is an American organic chemist. In 1990 he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis", specifically retrosynthetic analysis.[1][2] Regarded by many as one of the greatest living chemists, he has developed numerous synthetic reagents, methodologies, and has advanced the science of organic synthesis considerably.

Contents

Biography

He was born to Christian Lebanese immigrants in Methuen, Massachusetts, 30 miles north of Boston. His mother changed his name to "Elias" to honor his father who died eighteen months after the birth of his son. His widowed mother, brother, two sisters and an aunt and uncle all lived together in a spacious house—struggling through the depression. He attended Catholic elementary school and Lawrence Public High School.[1]

At MIT, he earned both a bachelor's degree in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1951. Both degrees were in chemistry. Immediately thereafter, he joined the faculty of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1959, he moved to Harvard University, where he is currently an emeritus professor of organic chemistry. He was awarded the American Chemical Society's greatest honor, the Priestley Medal, in 2004.

Major contributions

Reagents

He has developed several new synthetic reagents:

In addition, Corey commenced detailed studies on cationic polyolefin cyclizations utilized in enzymatic production of cholesterol from simpler plant terpenes.[6]

Methodology

Several reactions developed in the Corey's lab have become commonplace in modern synthetic organic chemistry. Several reactions have been named after him:

Total syntheses

E. J. Corey and his research group have completed many total syntheses. His 1969 total syntheses of several prostaglandins are considered classics.[7][8]

The Corey lactone

Other notable syntheses:

Books

Graduate student suicides

Between 1980 and 1998 there were eight graduate-student suicides at Harvard University, half of them happened in the chemistry department, and three of those were suicides of students supervised by Prof. Corey.[18] [19]

The three suicidal students were:

Corey was about 70 years old at the time of the last two suicides. Altom's suicide caused controversy because he explicitly blamed the advisor (Corey) for his problems. Altom died by taking potassium cyanide in 1998, citing in his farewell note "abusive research supervisors" as one reason for taking his life. Altom's suicide note had been described as a "policy paper," because it contained explicit instructions on how to reform the relationship between students and their supervisors. [20]

Woodward-Hoffmann rules

Recently when awarded the Priestley Medal, E. J. Corey has controversially claimed to have inspired Robert Burns Woodward prior to the development of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. This was rebutted by Roald Hoffmann in the journal Angewandte Chemie.[21]

References

  1. ↑ E. J. Corey, X-M. Cheng, The Logic of Chemical Synthesis, Wiley, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-471-11594-0.
  2. ↑ "The Logic of Chemical Synthesis: Multistep Synthesis of Complex Carbogenic Molecules (Nobel Lecture)" E.J. Corey, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1991, 30, 455. (doi:10.1002/anie.199104553)
  3. ↑ Corey, E.J., and Suggs, W. 'Pyridinium Chlorochromate. An Efficient Reagent for Oxidation of Primary and Secondary Alcohols to Carbonyl Compounds', Tetrahedron Lett. 1975, 31, 2647-2650.
  4. ↑ Corey, E. J.; Venkateswarlu, A. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1972, 94, 6190-6191. (doi:10.1021/ja00772a043)
  5. ↑ Corey, E.J.; Loh, T-P.; Roper, T.D.; Azimioara, M.D.; Noe, M.C. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1992, 114, 8290.
  6. ↑ Wendt, K.U.; Schulz, G.E.; Liu, D.R.; Corey, E.J. Angewandte Chemie International Edition in English, 2000, 39, 2812-2833.
  7. ↑ E. J. Corey, N. M. Weinshenker, T. K. Schaaf, W. Huber, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1969, 91, 5675-5677. (doi:10.1021/ja01048a062)
  8. ↑ K. C. Nicolaou, E. J. Sorensen, Classics in Total Synthesis, VCH, New York, 1996, ISBN 3-527-29231-4.
  9. ↑ Corey, E. J.; Ohno, M.; Vatakencherry, P. A.; Mitra, R. B. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1961, 83, 1251-1253. (doi:10.1021/ja01466a056)
  10. ↑ "Total Synthesis of Longifolene" Corey, E. J.; Ohno, M.; Mitra, R. B.; Vatakencherry, P. A. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1964, 86, 478-485. (doi:10.1021/ja01057a039)
  11. ↑ Corey, E. J.; Ghosh, A. K. Tetrahedron Lett. 1988, 29, 3205-3206.
  12. ↑ Corey, E. J.; Kang, M.; Desai, M. C.; Ghosh, A. K.; Houpis, I. N. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1988, 110, 649-651.
  13. ↑ Corey, E. J. Chem. Soc. Rev. 1988, 17, 111-133.
  14. ↑ "Total Synthesis of Lactacystin" Corey, E. J.; Reichard, G. A. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1992, 114, 10677.
  15. ↑ "Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Miroestrol" Corey, E. J.; Wu, L. I. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1993, 115, 9327.
  16. ↑ Corey, E. J.; Gin, D. Y.; Kania, R. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1996, 118, 9202-9203.
  17. ↑ Rajender Reddy Leleti.; Corey, E. J. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2004, 120, 6230-6232. ()
  18. ↑ Schneider, Alison (1998). "Harvard Faces the Aftermath of a Graduate Student's Suicide", The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on 2007-11-28. 
  19. ↑ For comparison: The MIT had 12 suicides between 1990 and 2002. That's one per year, while Harvard's rate mentioned above was lower than one per two years.
    Sontag, Deborah (2002-04-28). "Who Was Responsible For Elizabeth Shin?", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-11-28. 
  20. ↑ Hall, Stephen S. (1998-11-29). "Lethal Chemistry at Harvard", The New York Times. 
  21. ↑ R. Hoffmann Angew. Chem. 2004, 43, 6586-6590. (doi:10.1002/anie.200461440)

External links

Nobel Laureates in Chemistry

William Lipscomb (1976) · Ilya Prigogine (1977) · Peter D. Mitchell (1978) · Herbert C. Brown / Georg Wittig (1979) · Paul Berg / Walter Gilbert / Frederick Sanger (1980) · Kenichi Fukui / Roald Hoffmann (1981) · Aaron Klug (1982) · Henry Taube (1983) · Robert Merrifield (1984) · Herbert A. Hauptman / Jerome Karle (1985) · Dudley R. Herschbach / Yuan T. Lee / John Polanyi (1986) · Donald J. Cram / Jean-Marie Lehn / Charles J. Pedersen (1987) · Johann Deisenhofer / Robert Huber / Hartmut Michel (1988) · Sidney Altman / Thomas Cech (1989) · Elias Corey (1990) · Richard R. Ernst (1991) · Rudolph A. Marcus (1992) · Kary Mullis / Michael Smith (1993) · George Olah (1994) · Paul J. Crutzen / Mario J. Molina / Frank Rowland (1995) · Robert Curl / Harold Kroto / Richard Smalley (1996) · Paul D. Boyer / John E. Walker / Jens Christian Skou (1997) · Walter Kohn / John Pople (1998) · Ahmed Zewail (1999) · Alan J. Heeger / Alan MacDiarmid / Hideki Shirakawa (2000)
Complete roster · 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present
Wolf Prize in Chemistry Laureates

Carl Djerassi (1978) · Herman Mark (1979) · Henry Eyring (1980) · Joseph Chatt (1981) · John Charles Polanyi / George C. Pimentel (1982) · Herbert S. Gutowsky / Harden M. McConnell / John S. Waugh (1984) · Rudolph A. Marcus (1985) · Elias James Corey / Albert Eschenmoser (1986) · David C. Phillips / David Blow (1987) · Joshua Jortner / Raphael David Levine (1988) · Duilio Arigoni / Alan R. Battersby (1989) · Richard R. Ernst / Alexander Pines (1991) · John Pople (1992) · Ahmed Zewail (1993) · Richard Lerner / Peter Schultz (1995) · Gilbert Stork / Samuel J. Danishefsky (1996) · Gerhard Ertl / Gabor A. Somorjai (1998) · Raymond Lemieux (1999) · F. Albert Cotton (2000) · Henri B. Kagan / Ryoji Noyori / K. Barry Sharpless (2001) · Harry B. Gray (2004) · Richard N. Zare (2005) · Ada Yonath / George Feher (2007)  · W. E. Moerner / Allen J. Bard (2008)
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National Medal of Science laureates
 
Chemistry
1980s
1982: F. Albert Cotton · Gilbert Stork 1983: Roald Hoffmann · George C. Pimentel · Richard N. Zare 1986: Harry B. Gray · Yuan Tseh Lee · Carl S. Marvel · Frank H. Westheimer 1987: William S. Johnson · Walter H. Stockmayer · Max Tishler 1988: William O. Baker · Konrad E. Bloch · Elias J. Corey 1989: Richard B. Bernstein · Melvin Calvin · Rudoph A. Marcus · Harden M. McConnell
1990s
1990: Elkan Blout · Karl Folkers · John D. Roberts 1991: Ronald Breslow · Gertrude B. Elion · Dudley R. Herschbach · Glenn T. Seaborg 1992: Howard E. Simmons, Jr. 1993: Donald J. Cram · Norman Hackerman 1994: George S. Hammond 1995: Thomas Cech · Isabella L. Karle 1996: Norman Davidson 1997: Darleane C. Hoffman · Harold S. Johnston 1998: John W. Cahn · George M. Whitesides 1999: Stuart A. Rice · John Ross · Susan Solomon
2000s
2000: John D. Baldeschwieler · Ralph F. Hirschmann 2001: Ernest R. Davidson · Gabor A. Somorjai 2002: John I. Brauman 2004: Stephen J. Lippard 2006: Marvin H. Caruthers · Peter B. Dervan · Robert S. Langer