Leopold Ružička

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Leopold Ružička
Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1939)
Faraday Lectureship Prize (1958)
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry
InstitutionsETH Zurich, Utrecht University
Thesis Über Phenylmethylketen  (1911)
Doctoral advisorHermann Staudinger
Doctoral studentsGeorge Büchi
Duilio Arigoni
Arie Jan Haagen-Smit
Moses Wolf Goldberg
Klaus H. Hofmann
George Rosenkranz
Cyril A. Grob [de]
Edgar Heilbronner
Albert Eschenmoser

Leopold Ružička

male sex hormones."[8]
He worked most of his life in Switzerland, and received eight doctorates honoris causa in science, medicine, and law; seven prizes and medals; and twenty-four honorary memberships in chemical, biochemical, and other scientific societies.

Early life

Ružička was born in

Ružička, and a great-grandmother and a great-grandfather from Austria.[6] He lost his father, Stjepan, at the age of four, and his mother, Amalija Sever, took him and his younger brother Stjepan, to live in Osijek.[5]

Ružička attended the classics program secondary school in Osijek. He changed his original idea of becoming a priest and switched to studying technical disciplines.[10] Chemistry was his choice, probably because he hoped to get a position at the newly opened sugar refinery built in Osijek.[5]

Owing to the excessive hardship of everyday and political life, he left and chose the High Technical School in

Nobel laureate in 1953). Studying within Staudinger's department, he obtained his doctoral degree in 1910, then moving to Zürich
as Staudinger's assistant.

Career in research

Ružička's first works originated in the field of chemistry of natural compounds.

fragrant oil of vegetable origin, interesting to the perfume industry. He and Staudinger split company when he started cooperation with the Chuit & Naef Company (later known as Firmenich) in Geneva.[10][5]

In 1916–1917, he received the support of the oldest perfume manufacturer in the world Haarman & Reimer, of Holzminden, Germany. He became a Swiss citizen in 1917,[5] and published his Habilitation in 1918.[10] Fornasir and he isolated linalool in 1919.[10]

With expertise in the terpene field, he became senior lecturer in 1918, and in 1923, honorary professor at the ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) as well the University of Zurich. Here, with a group of his doctoral students, he proved the structure of the compounds muscone and civetone, macrocyclic ketone scents derived from the musk deer (Moschus moschiferus) and the civet cat (Viverra civetta).[12] These were the first natural products shown to have rings with more than six atoms, and at the time that Ružička inferred that civetone as having a 17-member ring.[13] Synthetic techniques at the time were only known for rings of up to eight members.[14] Muscone had been isolated in 1904[15] but was not identified as 3-methylcyclopentadecanone[16] until Ružička suspected a macrocycle, having characterised civetone. He also developed a method for synthesising macrocycles, now known as the Ružička large ring synthesis,[17] which he demonstrated by preparing civetone in 1927.[14][18]

Leopold Ružička Memorial Museum in his house in Vukovar, Croatia

In 1921, the Geneva perfume manufacturers

Chuit & Naef asked him to collaborate.[5] Working here, Ružička achieved financial independence, but not as big as he had planned, so he left Zürich to start working for the Basel-based CIBA.[citation needed] In 1927, he took over the organic chemistry chair at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands he remained for three years, and then returned to Switzerland, which was superior in its chemical industry. A synergistic upheaval in both the administration and chemistry departments coincided to make his good fortune.[5]

Ružička was first to synthesize musk at an industrial scale. Firmenech named this product Exaltone. Other Swiss manufacturers and DuPont were in competition with them.[19]

In 1934, Ružička synthesized the male hormone

hormones (androsterone and testosterone),[20] his laboratory became the world center of organic chemistry.[21] He was awarded in 1936 an honorary degree from Harvard University.[20]

In 1939 he won the

Nobel prize for chemistry with Adolf Butenandt.[6] Over the period 1934–1939 he had published 70 papers in the field of medicinally important steroid sex hormones, and filed several dozen patents besides.[5]

In 1940, following the award, he was invited by the Croatian Chemical Association, where he delivered a lecture to an over packed hall of dignitaries. The topic of the lecture was From the Dalmatian Insect Powder to Sex Hormones. In 1940 he became a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences,[4] in 1942 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society,[5] and in 1944 he became an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences.[22] During World War II, some of his excellent collaborators were lost, but Ružička restructured his laboratory with new, younger and promising people; among them was young scientist and future Nobel laureate Vladimir Prelog. With new people and ideas new research areas were opened.

The grave of Leopold Ružička and his wife Gertrud Frei in the Fluntern Cemetery in Zürich, Switzerland.

In 1946, Ružička and Lardon "established that the fragrance of ambergris is based on the triterpene (named) ambrein".[23][5][8]

Following 1950, Ružička returned to chemistry, which had entered a new era of research. Now he turned to the field of

biogenesis of terpenes. In 1953, he published his hypothesis, the Biogenetic Isoprene Rule (that the carbon skeleton of terpenes is composed variously of regularly or irregularly linked isoprene units), which was the peak of his scientific career.[24] In 1952, Oskar Jeger and he supervised a team which isolated lanosterol and established the link between terpenes and steroids.[25] Ružička retired in 1957, turning over the running of the laboratory to Prelog.[26]

Later life, legacy, honours and awards

Ružička was the recipient of eight honorary doctorates and the 1938

nuclear weapons.[28]

In 1970, Ružička delivered to the Nobel Laureate Conferences in Lindau a lecture entitled "Nobel Prizes and the chemistry of life".[5]

In later years, he served as consultant to

Sandoz A. G. of Basel.[5]

Ružička dedicated significant efforts to the problems of education. He insisted on a better organization of academic education and scientific work in the new

Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb
.

In 1974 he was awarded the Order of the Yugoslav Flag with Golden Wreath.[5]

At ETH Zurich, the Ružička Award was established in 1957 on the occasion of his retirement, for young chemists working in Switzerland.[10]

In his native Vukovar, a museum was opened in his honour in 1977.[5]

Ružička's archives are kept at ETH Zurich.[28]

The Ružička reaction is named after him.[29]

Personal life

Ružička married twice: to Anna Hausmann in 1912, and 1951 to Gertrud Acklin.[6] From 1929, he lived at Freudenbergstrasse 101 until the last years of his life.[5] He died in Mammern, Switzerland, a village on Lake Constance at the age of 89.[20]

References

  1. ^ "lȁv". Hrvatski jezični portal (in Croatian). Retrieved 19 October 2018. Lȁvoslav
  2. ^ "Stjȅpān". Hrvatski jezični portal (in Croatian). Retrieved 19 October 2018. Stjȅpān
  3. ^ a b "Rùžička". Hrvatski jezični portal (in Croatian). Retrieved 19 October 2018. Rùžička
  4. ^ a b "Leopold Stephan Ruzicka (1887–1976)". KNAW Past Members. Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
  5. ^
    doi:10.1098/rsbm.1980.0013
    .
  6. ^
    nobelprize.org. Nobel Foundation
    . 1939. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  7. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1939".
  8. ^
    PMID 31051473
    .
  9. ^ His great-grandparents included a Czech, from whom the name Ružička stems, an Upper Austrian and his wife from Wurtemberg, the other five being Croats
  10. ^ a b c d e Albert Eschenmoser: "Leopold Ruzicka – From the Isoprene Rule to the Question of Life's Origin" CHIMIA 44 (1990)
  11. ^ "Leopold Ruzicka (1887–1976)". 26 October 2018.
  12. ISBN 9780854045280
    .
  13. doi:10.1002/hlca.19260090129
    .
  14. ^
    ISBN 9788187224655
    .
  15. ISBN 9780854048243
    .
  16. doi:10.1002/hlca.19260090197
    .
  17. doi:10.1002/hlca.19260090130
    .
  18. doi:10.1002/hlca.19270100188
    .
  19. ^ Shyndriayeva, Galina (2015). "Perfume at the Forefront of Macrocyclic Compound Research: From Switzerland to Du Pont" (PDF). International Workshop on the History of Chemistry. Tokyo.
  20. ^ a b c d "Dr. Leopold Ruzicka Dies M Switzerland at Age 89; Won Nobel in Chemistry". New York Times. 27 September 1976.
  21. PMID 30959485
    .
  22. ^ "Leopold Ruzicka".
  23. doi:10.1002/hlca.19460290414
    .
  24. S2CID 44195550
    .
  25. ^ Voser, W., M. U. Mijovik, H. Heusser, O. Jeger u. L. Ruzicka: Über die Konstitution des Lanostadienols (Lanosterins) und seine Zugehörigkeit zu den Steroiden. Helv. chim. Acta 35, 2414 (1952).
  26. PMID 17285778
    .
  27. ^ "President of honour and honorary members of PTChem". Retrieved 23 February 2020.
  28. ^ a b "Leopold Ruzicka (1887–1976)".
  29. doi:10.1002/hlca.19260090130
    .

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