Nobel Laureate Sharpless to Deliver 2006 Wheeler Lecture
We are delighted to announce that the 2006 Wheeler Lecturer is Professor K. Barry Sharpless of The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California.
Professor Sharpless will deliver the lecture, entitled "How Much Reactivity Does a Chemist Need?", on Thurs 4th May at 4.15 pm in Theatre B004 in the UCD Health Sciences Centre. All are welcome to attend (maps).
Professor Sharpless (homepage) is a hugely influential scientist whose research has opened up whole new fields of study in organic and organometallic chemistry. His interest in enantioselective metal-catalysed reactions, especially alkene oxidations, produced three of the most important asymmetric reactions, the 'Sharpless epoxidation', osmium-catalysed bishydroxylation, and osmium-catalysed aminohydroxylation. This seminal work was recognised by the award of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001 (link), shared with W. S. Knowles and R. Noyori. He has also carried out ground-breaking research that revealed the unique properties of water as a solvent for organic reactions. One of his major interests in recent times is 'click chemistry', the use of exceptionally reliable and selective reactions for assembly of complex targets. This idea has led, inter alia, to the development of powerful new methods for drug discovery, and has been widely adopted by synthetic chemists world-wide.
The School of Chemistry is honoured that Professor Sharpless has accepted the invitation to present this year's Wheeler lecture, for which he has chosen the intriguing title of "How Much Reactivity Does a Chemist Need?". Professor Sharpless writes "I have borrowed my title from Leo Tolstoy’s famous short story How Much Land Does a Man Need? The original is a morality tale writ large. Even though I read it some 50 years ago, it has stuck as a vivid memory and a meaningful icon. My lecture will consider the chemists’ love affair with reactivity, in particular how much more ‘new reactivity’ we think we need and how, by seeing the known in new light, we might find creating new properties and functions much easier than we had ever imagined possible. As an example, chemical orthogonality can enable us to create “Trojan Horse” molecules using Nature’s own biochemical tools without Her ever noticing."
We look forward eagerly to hearing Prof Sharpless on Thurs 4th May. The lecture is sponsored by AGB Scientific and Celtic Catalysts Ltd.
The Wheeler Lecture series (link) commemorates the contributions of Professor T. S. Wheeler who held the Chair of Chemistry in University College Dublin from 1945 until 1962. This year's Wheeler lecture will be particularly poignant in that it is the first since the untimely death of T. S. Wheeler's daughter Thomasina (Tommy) in November 2005. Tommy was the wife of Prof Earle Waghorne (link) and she is deeply missed.
