Albert Eschenmoser
Encyclopedia
Albert Eschenmoser is a Swiss chemist working at the ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland....

 and The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute
The Scripps Research Institute is an American medical research facility that focuses on research in the basic biomedical sciences. Headquartered in La Jolla, California, with a sister facility in Jupiter, Florida, the institute is home to 3,000 scientists, technicians, graduate students, and...

.

His work together with Lavoslav Ružička
Lavoslav Ružicka
Lavoslav Ružička FRS born as Lavoslav Ružička was a Croatian scientist and winner of the 1939 Nobel Prize in Chemistry who worked most of his life in Switzerland...

 on terpene
Terpene
Terpenes are a large and diverse class of organic compounds, produced by a variety of plants, particularly conifers, though also by some insects such as termites or swallowtail butterflies, which emit terpenes from their osmeterium. They are often strong smelling and thus may have had a protective...

s and the postulation of squalene cyclization to form lanosterol
Lanosterol
Lanosterol is a tetracyclic triterpenoid, which is the compound from which all steroids are derived.-Role in creation of steroids:Elaboration of lanosterol under enzyme catalysis leads to the core structure of steroids. 14-Demethylation of lanosterol by CYP51 eventually yields...

 improved the insight into steroid
Steroid
A steroid is a type of organic compound that contains a characteristic arrangement of four cycloalkane rings that are joined to each other. Examples of steroids include the dietary fat cholesterol, the sex hormones estradiol and testosterone, and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone.The core...

 biosynthesis.

In the early 1960s, Eschenmoser began work on what was the most complex natural product synthesized at the time - vitamin B12
Vitamin B12
Vitamin B12, vitamin B12 or vitamin B-12, also called cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin with a key role in the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system, and for the formation of blood. It is one of the eight B vitamins...

. In a remarkable collaboration with his colleague Robert Burns Woodward
Robert Burns Woodward
Robert Burns Woodward was an American organic chemist, considered by many to be the preeminent organic chemist of the twentieth century...

 in Harvard, a team of almost one hundred students and postdoctoral workers worked for many years on the synthesis of this molecule. The work was finally published in 1973, and it marked a landmark in the history of organic chemistry.

The Eschenmoser fragmentation
Eschenmoser fragmentation
The Eschenmoser fragmentation, first published in 1967, is the chemical reaction of α,β-epoxyketones with aryl sulfonylhydrazines to give alkynes and carbonyl compounds...

,the Eschenmoser sulfide contraction
Eschenmoser sulfide contraction
The Eschenmoser sulfide contraction is an organic reaction first described by Albert Eschenmoser for the synthesis of 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds from a thioester. The method requires a base and a tertiary phosphine...

 and Eschenmoser's salt
Eschenmoser's salt
Eschenmoser's salt, dimethylmethylideneammonium iodide, is a strong dimethylaminomethylating agent, used to prepare derivatives of the type RCH2N2. Enolates, enolsilylethers, and even more acidic ketones undergo efficient dimethylaminomethylation...

 are named after him.

Awards

Eschenmoser was awarded the 2008 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry from The Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States, dating to 1824. The Institute also houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial.-History:On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughn Merrick and...

 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania http://www.fi.edu/franklinawards/08/laureate_bf_chemistry-eschenmoser.html.

External links

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