Raymond Lemieux

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Raymond Urgel Lemieux
National Research Council

Raymond Urgel Lemieux,

organic chemist, who pioneered many discoveries in the field of chemistry, his first and most famous being the synthesis of sucrose.[2] His contributions include the discovery of the anomeric effect and the development of general methodologies for the synthesis of saccharides still employed in the area of carbohydrate chemistry.[3] He was a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Royal Society (England), and a recipient of the prestigious Albert Einstein World Award of Science and Wolf Prize
in Chemistry.

Life and career

Dr. Raymond U. Lemieux was born in

Organic Chemistry in 1946. He won a post-doctoral scholarship at Ohio State University, where Bristol Laboratories Inc. sponsored his research on the structure of streptomycin
. He met his future wife, a doctoral student, at Ohio State and they were married in 1948.

In following years, he returned to Canada where he spent two years as an

organ anti-rejection drugs
.

While at the University of Alberta, he established a number of biochemical companies, including R&L Molecular Research Ltd. in 1962, Raylo Chemicals Ltd. in 1966 (which purchased R&L) and Chembiomed in 1977 (which has since been taken over by Synsorb Biotech of Calgary, Alberta.) Prof. Lemieux published an autobiography, entitled "Explorations with Sugars: How Sweet It Was," in 1990.[4]

Dr. Raymond Lemieux died of an aneurysm in 2000.

In 1999, the University of Alberta Faculty of Science and Strathcona County established the Strathcona County/R.U. Lemieux Chair in Carbohydrate Chemistry. In 2001, the University of Alberta renamed the building(s) housing the Department of Chemistry to the Gunning/Lemieux Chemistry Centre to acknowledge the contributions of Profs. Raymond Lemieux and Harry Gunning.

Awards

Dr. R.U. Lemieux received numerous awards and honours for his work in chemistry:

  • Induction into the Royal Society of Canada (1954)
  • C.S. Hudson Award of the American Chemical Society (1966)
  • Became the first western Canadian to be elected a fellow of the Royal Society (England) (1967)
  • Appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (1968)
  • Haworth Award and Medal (1983)
  • The Tishler Award, Harvard University (1983)
  • Gairdner Foundation International Award
    (1985)
  • Made Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Stockholm (1988)
  • Induction into the Alberta Order of Excellence (1990)
  • King Faisal International Prize
    for Science (first Canadian) (1990)
  • NSERC
    Gold Medal in Science (1991)
  • Albert Einstein World Award of Science (1992)[5]
  • Made Companion of the Order of Canada (1994)
  • Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1999)

Notable former trainees

Personal

Raymond's daughter Janet Lemieux[6] was Canadian champion soccer player and was inducted to the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame in 2021.

See also

References

  1. S2CID 86499658
    .
  2. doi:10.1021/ja01112a545
    .
  3. PMID 9007264
    .
  4. ISBN 0-8412-1803-X
    .
  5. ^ "Albert Einstein World Award of Science 1992". Archived from the original on February 20, 2014. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  6. ^ "Janet Lemieux". 28 January 2020. Retrieved April 29, 2021.

Further reading

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Raymond_Lemieux&oldid=1193206318"