Visiting Professorship in Organic Chemistry

We thank the Wisconsin Section of the American Chemical Society and the Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison for sponsoring this symposium. Contact Hans J. Reich (reich@chem.wisc.edu) for more information.

Professor Reinhard W. Hoffmann did his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Bonn, postdoctoral work at Pennsylvania State University and Habilitation at the University of Heidelberg with Wittig. After a brief stay at the University of Darmstadt, he moved to the Phillips-Universität in Marburg in 1970, where he is Professor of Chemistry. In addition to a semester as Visiting Professor in Madison in 1968, Professor Hoffmann has been a visitor at the University of Bern, the University of California at Berkeley and Kyoto University in Japan.

Current research interests include: (a) Investigation of alpha heterosubstituted organo-lithium and -magnesium compounds (generation in enantiomerically pure form, configurational stability, reactivity, application in stereoselective synthesis). (b) Stereoselective synthesis using allylboronates and application in natural product synthesis. (c) Conformation design of flexible molecular skeleta, i.e. identification of flexible backbone segments which have a single preferred conformation, application of theses findings to the development of flexible peptidomimetics and flexible host molecules with strong conformational preferences.

Professor Carsten Bolm received his Diplom with H. Hopf at the University of Braunschweig in Germany and an MS in Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1984 (H. J. Reich); his Ph.D. at the University in Marburg (M.T. Reetz, 1987) and did Postdoctoral work at MIT in the Sharpless group. After his Habilitation in the Giese group in Basel, Switzerland he started as Professor of Organic Chemistry in Marburg in 1993; he is currently Chair of Organic Chemistry at the University in Aachen. Professor Bolm was a Visiting Professor in Madison in the fall of 1992.

Research interests are focused on: (a) The synthesis and use of metal-containing reagents which catalyze asymmetric transformations in organic synthesis, including catalysts for oxidations, reductions and C-C-bond formations. The resulting products are interesting intermediates for the preparation of biologically active compounds. (b) Mechanistic work on understanding the mode of action of metal catalysts in general. (c) Synthesis of new pseudopeptides which can act as enzyme inhibitors.

Professor Roger Alder received his B.A. (1960) and Ph.D. (1962) at Oxford University (with Mark Whiting). After postdoctoral work at UCLA and Brandeis Universities (with Jim Hendrickson) and work as NATO scholar at Oxford he started his independent career at Bristol University in 1965, where he is now Professor of Organic Chemistry. Professor Alder was a Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1977.

Professor Alder's research group aims to design, make, and study the properties of novel organic compounds and materials. His current interests are in four areas: (a) Stable carbenes: the nature of bonding in these species; limits of stability, mechanisms for dimerization, and applications in synthesis. (b) The synthesis of medium-ring mono- and bi-cyclic compounds; the study of novel bonding in their transannular and intrabridgehead chemistry. (c) Medium-ring diphosphines as ligands for transition metals; the application of their complexes in catalysis. (d) Novel polymers with conformational control by the designed use of quaternary centers and other conformational locks

Professor Robert J. McMahon received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1980 and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1985, where he worked with Prof. Orville L. Chapman. His postdoctoral research with Prof. Mark S. Wrighton at MIT involved organometallic chemistry and materials chemistry. Prof. McMahon joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 1988, where he is now Professor of Chemistry.

Professor McMahon's research interests include: (a) mechanistic organic chemistry of relevance to interstellar space and combustion; (b) generation and characterization of organic and organometallic reactive intermediates; (c) effects of spin multiplicity in organometallic chemistry; and (d) design, synthesis and evaluation of new materials with nonlinear optical properties.

Professor Michael Reggelin received his undergraduate education at the Universities of Giessen and Göttingen, and received his Ph.D. with Prof. D. Hoppe in Kiel in 1989. He started his current position as Professor of Chemistry at Mainz University in 1998 after postdoctoral work at the Technical University of Munich with Prof. H. Kessler, and Habilitation in 1997 at the University of Frankfurt in Griesinger's group. Professor Reggelin is currently Goering Visiting Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Professor Reggelin's research interests are: (a) Development of new stereoasymmetric reactions (asymmetric allyl transfer, aldol reactions, asymmetric catalysis with helical-chiral ligands). (b) NMR-spectroscopy on reacting systems and reactive intermediates (allyllithium, allyltitanium and allylpalladium compounds). (c) Synthesis of polyketide libraries based on iterative asymmetric aldol reactions on polymeric supports. (d) Asymmetric synthesis of highly substituted azaheterocyclic compounds as topological mimics of beta-turns.