Rolf Huisgen
Rolf Huisgen in 2004
Born13 June 1920
Gerolstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Died26 March 2020(2020-03-26) (aged 99)
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
Alma materUniversity of Munich
Known for1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction
Awards1960 Centenary Prize
1961 Liebig Medal
1979 Otto Hahn Prize for Chemistry and Physics
Scientific career
FieldsChemist
InstitutionsUniversity of Munich
Doctoral advisorHeinrich Otto Wieland

Rolf Huisgen (German: ['huːzgɛn]; 13 June 1920 – 26 March 2020) was a German chemist. His importance in synthetic organic chemistry extends to the enormous influence he had in post-war chemistry departments in Germany and Austria, due to a large number of his habilitants becoming professors. His major achievement was the development of the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction, also called the Huisgen cycloaddition.

Life

Huisgen was born in Gerolstein in Rhineland-Palatinate and studied in Munich under the supervision of Heinrich Otto Wieland. He completed his Ph.D. in 1943 with a thesis about a strychnine alkaloid.[1][2] He completed his habilitation in 1947, and was appointed professor at the University of Tübingen in 1949. He returned to the University of Munich in 1952, succeeding Wieland,[2] and he remained dedicated to research long after attaining emeritus status there in 1988.[1][3]

One of his major achievements was the development of the 1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction, also known as the Huisgen cycloaddition or Huisgen reaction.[4][5] The Huisgen reaction is of paramount importance to the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds, such as vitamins, alkaloids and antibiotics.[1]

Huisgen was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1960.[6] He was also a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He was an Honorary Member of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker and the Chemical Society of Japan. He was awarded the Liebig Medal in 1961, the Lavoisier Medal from the Société Chimique de France in 1965, and the Adolfo Quilico Medal from the Società Chimica Italiana in 1987, among others.[7] He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989.[8] He received several honorary doctorates, including from the FU Berlin in 2010.[1]

Sixteen of his students became professors in Germany alone,[1] including Reinhard Brückner, Johann Gasteiger,[9] Bernd Giese, Herbert Mayr, Johann Mulzer,[10] Hans-Ulrich Reissig, Jürgen Sauer and Ivar Karl Ugi.[11]

Personal life

His daughter, mathematician Birge Huisgen-Zimmermann, was born in 1946. He died in Munich on 26 March 2020, aged 99.[7]

Publications

  • Huisgen, Rolf; Grashey, Rudolf; Sauer, Jürgen (1964). "Cycloaddition reactions of alkenes". The Alkenes: Vol. 1 (1964). Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. pp. 739–953. doi:10.1002/9780470771044.ch11. ISBN 978-0-470-77104-4.
  • Huisgen, Rolf (7 July 1963). "1.3-Dipolare Cycloadditionen Rückschau und Ausblick". Angewandte Chemie (in German). Wiley. 75 (13): 604–637. Bibcode:1963AngCh..75..604H. doi:10.1002/ange.19630751304. ISSN 0044-8249.
  • Huisgen, Rolf (1994). The adventure playground of mechanisms and novel reactions. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. ISBN 978-0-8412-1832-1. OCLC 30399911.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Ehrendoktorwürde für Chemiker Rolf Huisgen". FU Berlin (in German). 3 February 2010. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
  2. 1 2 Sustmann, Reiner (1995). "Rolf Huisgen's contribution to organic chemistry, emphasizing 1.3-dipolar cycloadditions". Heterocycles. 40 (1): 1. doi:10.3987/1995-01-0001.
  3. ↑ Seeman, Jeffrey I. (2005). "Rolf Huisgen: A Gentleman Scholar with Energy and Passion". Helvetica Chimica Acta. 88 (6): 1145–1153. doi:10.1002/hlca.200590097.
  4. ↑ Huisgen, Rolf (November 1963). "Kinetics and Mechanism of 1,3-Dipolar Cycloadditions". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 2 (11): 633–645. doi:10.1002/anie.196306331. Archived from the original on 11 December 2012.
  5. ↑ Huisgen, Rolf (October 1963). "1,3-Dipolar Cycloadditions. Past and Future". Angewandte Chemie International Edition. 2 (10): 565–598. doi:10.1002/anie.196305651. Archived from the original on 16 December 2012.
  6. ↑ Dr. Rolf Huisgen American Academy of Arts and Sciences
  7. 1 2 "Rolf Huisgen (1920–2020)". chemistryviews.org. 26 March 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  8. ↑ Rolf Huisgen National Academy of Sciences
  9. ↑ Johann Gasteiger-Germany’s Pioneer in Chemoinformatics pubs.acs.org
  10. ↑ Prof. Dr. Johann Mulzer scheringstiftung.de 21 November 2017
  11. ↑ Chemistry Tree Rolf Huisgen Academictree chemistry, retrieved 12 February 2018

Literature

  • Rüchardt, Christoph; Sauer, Jürgen; Sustmann, Reiner (2005). "Rolf Huisgen: Some Highlights of His Contributions to Organic Chemistry". Helvetica Chimica Acta. 88 (6): 1154. doi:10.1002/hlca.200590098.
  • Houk, Kendall N. (2010). "Rolf Huisgen's Profound Adventures in Chemistry". Helvetica Chimica Acta. 93 (7): 1241–1260. doi:10.1002/hlca.201000209.
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