2005 American Chemical Society A.C.Cope Award Address Joys of Molecules.2.Endeavors in Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry

摘要

In 1969,as I was pondering the choice of a Ph.D.mentor in London(U.K.),two names came to mind:Sir Derek Barton,then at Imperial College,and Franz Sondheimer,then at University College.Delving deeper into their research,I recognized a sharp distinction between the two.Barton was primarily interested in natural products with biological activity;Sondheimer was dealing with annulenes and related polyunsatu-rated systems,interesting only from the theoretical point of view.While Barton's molecules were,for the most part,unsymmetrical and adorned with chiral centers,those of Sondheimer were beautifully symmetrical and usually flat(see,for example,18-annulene(2),an aromatic analogue of benzene(Figure 1)).In the end,it was the architect in me that prevailed,and I decided to join,in September of 1969,Sondheimer's group where I would also have the privilege to be mentored by Peter J.Garratt.Parenthetically,it was only a month later that the Swedish Academy of Sciences chose Barton to share the 1969 Nobel Prize for chemistry,a fact that made me momentarily question my judgment at the time.