John C. Sheehan

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This article is about the American chemist. For other uses, see John Sheehan.
John Clark Sheehan
John Scott Award for inventors benefiting mankind (1964)
Outstanding Achievement Award of the University of Michigan (1971)
Oesper Award (1982)[1]
Scientific career
FieldsOrganic chemistry
InstitutionsMassachusetts Institute of Technology, Merck & Co.
Doctoral advisorWerner E. Bachmann
Notable studentsE.J. Corey

John Clark Sheehan (September 23, 1915 – March 21, 1992) was an American organic chemist whose work on synthetic

steroids
.

Early life

He was born on September 23, 1915, in

Catholic and attended Catholic grade schools.[2]

His father was then a sports editor and police reporter for a local newspaper,

genealogist who later became the Michigan registrar for the Daughters of the American Revolution. His paternal grandfather, John W. Sheehan, was a successful lawyer, while his maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Y. Green, was a bank manager who had a keen interest in science and nature. Green played a role in stimulating John C. Sheehan's interest in science by giving him a microscope with an oil-immersion lens. He also introduced Sheehan to the curator of a local museum and took his grandson to meetings where Green frequently met with others passionate about astronomy
.

At a young age, John Sheehan had been fascinated by

explosives and rocketry. He started with a simple chemistry set and then progressed to a basement laboratory where he built models and performed experiments. A model airplane that he built with a delta wing won a competition in his self-design class. Apart from science, Sheehan was also very competitive in other activities. He was an excellent marble shooter in elementary school, representing his school in the state championships. In addition, he was the winner of a city-wide yo-yo competition, the winner of a Boy Scout election, an active member of his high school football team, as well as Battle Creek College's best tennis player. Sheehan's father had a long struggle with cancer and died at age fifty.[3]

Sheehan had two brothers, Joseph Sheehan and David Sheehan. Joseph is a professor of psychology at the University of California and ran training programs for relieving speech defects with his wife, Vivian. David Sheehan, the youngest of the three, worked in the manufacturing industry in Battle Creek. John Sheehan married Marion Jennings shortly after receiving his Ph.D and had three children: John C. Sheehan Jr., David E. Sheehan, and Elizabeth (Betsy) S. Watkins. He had six grandchildren.

Education

John Sheehan attended

cyclonite, which turned out to give the Allies a huge advantage at sea during World War II
.

Early career

After the efficient completion of RDX synthesis, John Sheehan had the experience of applying organic chemistry to real-life problems. Having struggled against

β-lactams
, first synthesis of the penicillin ring system, and his work on several other natural products.

Synthesis of penicillin

For three decades after the discovery of natural penicillin by Sir

United States government
undertook a massive effort to determine the chemical structure of penicillin and to chemically synthesize it in large quantities. The scale of this project was compared to the development of the atomic bomb. This stemmed from the dire need for the antibiotic to treat soldiers on the battlefield. More than a thousand chemists working at thirty-nine laboratories were involved in the project. Despite the huge investment by the government, none proved to be successful in solving this elusive problem.

Structure of penicillin V

As John Sheehan described in his book The Enchanted Ring: The Untold Story of Penicillin, after the war, most other synthetic chemists abandoned attempting penicillin synthesis, and were convinced that such synthesis was impossible. For the nine years that he worked on penicillin synthesis, there were practically no competitors, leaving Sheehan on a lonely search for a way to synthesize the antibiotic. Most young academic chemists chose not to undertake projects that they perceived to be painfully slow because they wanted to impress faculty

tenure committees with many experiments and publications. Even though many of his friends openly questioned his decision of getting involved with the drug, Sheehan was determined to work on the chemical synthesis of penicillin at M.I.T. Once he decided that penicillin was an important problem, and one that had a solution, Sheehan never re-evaluated his position. He explained that one of the reasons he decided to switch from his job at Merck to M.I.T. was because "At M.I.T, I was a research committee of one. I could make the decision to spend the rest of my life on the penicillin problem; it was only my career that was on the line."[4]

At the time, it was known that the

Beecham, a British
industrial research laboratory that was also working on penicillins.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Previous recipients of the Oesper Award". University of Cincinnati. Retrieved November 29, 2023.
  2. John Dombrowski Roberts (1995). "John Clark Sheehan" (PDF). National Academy of Sciences
    .
  3. ^ Corey, E. J.; Roberts, J. D. "Biographical Memoirs: John Clark Sheehan. The National Academies Press". Retrieved April 6, 2009.
  4. ^
    OCLC 8170304
    .
  5. ^ "Professor John C. Sheehan Dies At 76". Massachusetts Institute of Technology News Office. April 1, 1992. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
  6. Time magazine. March 18, 1957. Archived from the original
    on February 28, 2007. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
  7. ^ Saxon, Wolfgang (24 March 1992). "John Clark Sheehan, 76, Chemist Who First Synthesized Penicillin". The New York Times. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
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