Alan Katritzky | |
|---|---|
 Alan Roy Katritzky FRS | |
| Born | Alan Roy Katritzky (1928-08-18)18 August 1928 |
| Died | 10 February 2014(2014-02-10) (aged 85) |
| Education | St Catherine's College, Oxford Trinity Hall, Cambridge |
| Spouse | Agnes Juliane Dietlinde Kilian (Linde) |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | |
| Doctoral advisor | Sir Robert Robinson |
| Website | www |
Alan Roy KatritzkyFRS[1][2] (18 August 1928 – 10 February 2014) was a British-born American chemist, latterly working at theUniversity of Florida.[3] He was aheterocyclic chemistry pioneer, who played a leading role in the subject’s elucidation and development.[4]
Alan Roy Katritzky was born inHarringay on 18 August 1928, son of Frederick Charles Katritzky, a tailor, and Emily Catherine (née Lane). In 1940 he was evacuated with other children from his secondary school (Hornsey County Grammar School) toWisbech in Cambridgeshire, and it was there that "his passion for chemistry was inspired by the chemistry master, W. E. Fieldhouse".[1] Having returned to Harringay, he set up his own laboratory at home and on his fifteenth birthday he prepared his first heterocyclic compound, thebarbiturate drugVeronal.[1] After 18 months ofNational Service, he enteredSt Catherine's College, Oxford in 1948. He obtained a first-class honours degree, and went on to study for a DPhil, which he gained in 1954. Katritzky’s research was on the structure ofstrychnine, supervised bySir Robert Robinson.
Katritzky stayed on at Oxford as an independent researcher, from 1954 to 1958, directing a small group at theDyson Perrins Laboratory; his main interest was in pyridines. He moved to Cambridge in 1958, initially toTrinity Hall, before becoming a founding fellow ofChurchill College.[1][5] During his time in Cambridge, he continued his research on pyridines as well as branching out into other areas. One such –NMR – particularly caught his interest, as it gave new insights into structure while leaving the sample intact. In 1963 Cambridge University honored him with the award of a DSc degree.[6]
At the age of 34 Alan Katritzky was appointed professor of chemistry and head of a new school of physical sciences atUEA. Facing considerable opposition he argued that he should be head of a school of chemical sciences. He was supported byAlexander Todd, Robinson andCockcroft, and won the day.[7] Much effort was expended in preparing undergraduate courses, designing and building new laboratories, and recruiting some 25 faculty members, in addition to carrying out his research in heterocyclic chemistry. During this period his research elucidated understandings ofaromaticity, structure and mechanisms ofelectrophilic substitution. In 1967 together withGurnos Jones andCharles Rees, he played a leading role in the creation of the Heterocyclic Group of the Chemical Society.[1] He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1980.[1] Overall, Katritzky’s stay at UEA was “immensely productive”.
By 1980, the administrative load in the job was becoming too much, and he realised that if he stayed in the UK retirement was on the horizon. So, in that year, Katritzky accepted the Kenan Chair of Chemistry at theUniversity of Florida, which was a research professorship, with no requirement to provide lectures to undergraduates.[1] It proved to be another very productive phase of Katritzky’s career, during which he established the Florida Center for Heterocyclic Compounds,[7] developed and made available a computer program (Codessa Pro: COmprehensive DEscriptors for Structural and Statistical Analysis)[8] and extensively researched the versatility of benzotriazoles in the synthesis of biologically interesting compounds.[9] During his career, he supervised more than "300 graduate students and he worked with over 500 visiting faculty and postdoctoral fellows". He has been described as "forceful, direct and resolute in his professional life, but compassionate and warm in personal relationships."[1]
For many years, Katritzky conducted annual worldwide lecture tours and over the course of his career "he served as a consultant to 32 companies throughout Europe and North America".[6] When required, he was able to lecture and answer questions in German, French and Italian. Many of his lecture tours were organized through theBritish Council, national academies of science and chemical societies. Two of the companies for which he did consultancy were 3M and Pfizer. His consultancy for 3M continued for a long time, with visits to their headquarters atSt Paul, Minnesota, theirHarlow laboratories, and their subsidiaryFerrania inSavona, Italy.[1]
“During 60 years of research, Professor Katritzky's output was prodigious with over 2170 papers in the primary scientific literature plus authorship or editorship of more than 200 books.[3] In the 1960s, Katritzky collaborated with Jeanne Lagowski to write two seminal textbooks:Heterocyclic Chemistry 1960 andPrinciples of Heterocyclic Chemistry 1967. The second book was translated into seven languages.[1] In 1962 and 1965 respectively, he took on the editorship of two organic chemistry journals:Advances in Heterocyclic Chemistry andTetrahedron Letters (UK editor). He relinquished the latter when he moved to the US in 1980, but in the same year he started as US editor forTetrahedron and continued in this role until 1998. He and Charles Rees were jointly editors-in-chief of the eight volumeComprehensive Heterocyclic Chemistry, which was published in 1984. Katritzky also participated as an editor-in-chief of updates of this work, which were published in 1996 (eleven volumes) and 2008 (fifteen volumes).[1]
In 2000, Katritzky foundedArkivoc, an open access journal which is free to both readers and authors. He and his wife Linde made a charitable donation to startArkivoc, hoping that the journal would particularly help authors and readers in developing countries. In the same year, Katritzky started annualFlorida Heterocyclic & Synthetic Chemistry (FloHet) conferences, anticipating that they could provide revenue to support the journal.[3]
"His work was recognized throughout the world by 33 honorary doctorates or professorships and awards.”[3] Amongst the latter were:
Alan Katritzky met Agnes Juliane Dietlinde Kilian (Linde) while skiing in Germany in 1949. They married in Munich on 5 August 1952. They had four children: Margaret, Erika, Rupert, and Freda.
