Jerrold Meinwald | |
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 Meinwald in 2010 | |
| Born | (1927-01-16)January 16, 1927 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | April 23, 2018(2018-04-23) (aged 91) Ithaca, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Harvard University University of Chicago |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chemistry |
| Institutions | Cornell University |
| Doctoral students | George Wiley |
Jerrold Meinwald (January 16, 1927 – April 23, 2018) was an Americanchemist known for his work onchemical ecology, a field he co-founded with his colleague and friendThomas Eisner. He was a Goldwin SmithProfessor Emeritus of Chemistry atCornell University. He was author or co-author of well over 400 scientific articles. His interest in chemistry was sparked by fireworks done with his friend Michael Cava when they were still in junior high school. Meinwald was also a music aficionado and studied flute withMarcel Moyse – the world's greatest flutist of his time.[according to whom?]
Jerrold Meinwald was born in 1927 in New York City.[1] He studied chemistry at the University of Chicago where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1948. He then went on toHarvard University where he obtained his Ph.D. withR.B. Woodward in 1952. A DuPont Fellowship brought him to Cornell, where he has spent most of his subsequent career.
Since the early 1960s, he has worked, often in collaboration withThomas Eisner, on chemical signalling in animals, particularly insects and arthropods; he is regarded as one of the founders of the field of chemical ecology. A particular field of interest was the ways in which insects either use chemicals synthesised by the plants that they feed on, or use those plant chemicals as substrates from which to synthesize their own. A species on which he and Eisner published several times over decades is the mothUtetheisa ornatrix, whichcollects pyrrolizidine alkaloids from its food source[2] and uses them as a deterrent to predators; the male also uses them as a pheromone[3] and passes them on in its semen to the female who uses them to make her eggs unpalatable.[2][4][5]
In analysing the constituents of plant signalling, he developed a number of retrosynthetic techniques, including theMeinwald Rearrangement where anepoxide is converted to acarbonyl in the presence of aLewis acid; he has also performed substantial research over forty years in NMR spectroscopy.[6] and in reactions for producing chiral derivatives in order to determineabsolute configurations of chiral molecules.[7][8]
In 1981, Meinwald became a founding member of theWorld Cultural Council.[9] He died in Ithaca on April 23, 2018, at the age of 91.[10][11]
He won theNational Medal of Science in 2012.[12][13][14] He was a member of theNational Academy of Sciences since 1969, Fellow of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1970, and member of theAmerican Philosophical Society since 1987. Other notable honours:
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