Vladimir Prelog

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Vladimir Prelog
Born(1906-07-23)23 July 1906
Sarajevo, Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary
Died7 January 1998(1998-01-07) (aged 91)
Zürich, Switzerland
Alma materCzech Technical University in Prague (Sc.D, 1929)
Known for
Spouse
Kamila Vitek
​
(m. 1933)​
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry
Institutions
Doctoral advisorEmil Votoček[citation needed]

Vladimir Prelog ForMemRS[1] (23 July 1906 – 7 January 1998) was a Croatian-Swiss organic chemist who received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Prelog was born and grew up in Sarajevo.[2] He lived and worked in Prague, Zagreb and Zürich during his lifetime.[3][4]

Early life

Prelog was born in Sarajevo,

assassination of Franz Ferdinand occurred.[6]

Education

Monument of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts to Franjo Rački, Ivan Miković, Grga Tuškan and Vladimir Prelog in Mirogoj Cemetery

Prelog attended elementary school in Sarajevo, but in 1915, as a child, Prelog moved to

Austro-Hungary) with his parents. In Zagreb he graduated from elementary school. At first, he attended gymnasium in Zagreb, but soon afterwards, his father got a job in Osijek
, so he continued his education there. He spent two years in Osijek gymnasium, where he became interested in chemistry under the influence of his professor Ivan Kuria.

In 1922, as a 16-year-old boy, his first scientific work was published in the German scientific journal Chemiker Zeitung. The article concerned an analytical instrument used in chemical labs. Prelog completed his high school education in Zagreb in 1924. Following his father's wishes, he moved to Prague, where he received his diploma in chemical engineering from the Czech Technical University in 1928. He received his Sc.D in 1929. His teacher was Emil Votoček, while his assistant and mentor Rudolf Lukeš introduced him to the world of organic chemistry.[3]: 578 

Upon leaving the Czech Technical University, Prelog worked in the plant laboratory of the private firm of G.J. Dríza in Prague; few academic positions were available due to the

alkaloids in cacao bark.[citation needed
]

Career and research

The structure of adamantane, first synthesised by Prelog in 1941.

Prelog wanted to work in an academic environment, so he accepted the position of lecturer at the University of Zagreb in 1935.[6] At the Technical Faculty in Zagreb, he lectured on organic chemistry and chemical engineering.[3]: 578 

With the help of collaborators and students, Prelog started researching

oil fields.[7][8]

Zürich

In 1941, in the midst of

optically active
substrate.

With this chiral resolution, he was able to prove that not only carbon but also nitrogen atoms can be the chiral centre in a molecule, which had been speculated for several years.[9] His relationship with Ružička helped him climb up the academic hierarchical ladder. Starting as an assistant, he became Privat-Dozent, Titularprofessor, associate professor, and in 1952 full professor. In 1957 he succeeded Ružička as head of the Laboratory.[10] Since Prelog disliked administrative duties, he implemented rotating chairmanship in the ETH.[3]: 578  Prelog joined the ETH at the right time, since Ružička's Jewish co-workers left the country and went to the United States, so Prelog filled the vacuum they left.[3]: 580 

Later work in Switzerland

Prelog's main interest was focused on

Robert Robinson's formula for strychnine was not correct. Although the formula he proposed was also not the right one, the discovery increased his international prestige. Later he worked on elucidating the structures of aromatic Erythrina alkaloids with Derek Barton, Oskar Jeger and Robert Burns Woodward.[3]
: 580 

At mid-century, the instrumental revolution necessitated a new approach to structural elucidation. Purely chemical methods had become outdated and had lost some of their intellectual appeal. Recognizing the growing importance of microbial metabolites, Prelog started working on these compounds, which possess unusual structures and interesting biological properties. It led him into antibiotics, and he subsequently elucidated the structures of such compounds as

rifamycins. For Prelog, natural products represented more than a chemical challenge. He considered them a record of billions of years of evolution.[3]
: 580 

In 1944 at the ETH, Prelog managed to separate enantiomers with "asymmetric" trivalent nitrogen by column chromatography at a time when this method was still in its infancy. His work on medium-sized alicyclic and heterocyclic rings established him as a pioneer in stereochemistry and conformational theory and brought an invitation to give the first Centenary Lecture of the Chemical Society in London in 1949. He synthesised medium-sized ring compounds with 8 to 12 members from dicarboxylic acid esters by acyloin condensation and explained their unusual chemical reactivity by a "nonclassical" strain because of energetically unfavorable conformations. He also contributed to the understanding of Bredt's rule by showing that a double bond may occur at the bridgehead if the ring is large enough.[3]: 580–581 

In his research of asymmetric syntheses, Prelog studied enantioselective reactions and established rules for the relationship between configuration of educts and products. From Prelog's researches into the stereospecificity of microbiological reductions of alicyclic ketones and the enzymic oxidation of alcohols, he contributed not only to the knowledge of the mechanism of stereospecificity of enzymic reactions in general but also to the structure of the active site of the enzyme.[3]: 581 

Specifying the growing number of

CIP system (Cahn-Ingold-Prelog) was developed for defining absolute configuration using "sequence rules". Together they published two papers. After Cahn and Ingold died, Prelog published a third paper on the topic.[3]: 581  In 1959, Prelog obtained Swiss citizenship.[10]

Awards and honours

Prelog was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960[11] and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1961.[12]

Prelog was elected a

Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1962 for his contribution to the development of modern stereochemistry.[1]

Prelog received the 1975

John Cornforth.[3]: 571  He was elected to the American Philosophical Society the following year.[17]

In 1986, he became an honorary member of the

Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.[citation needed] Prelog was also a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.[18]

Personal life

In 1933, Prelog married Kamila Vitek.[3]: 578  The couple had a son Jan (born 1949).[10]

An intellectual with a wide cultural background, Prelog was one of the 109 Nobel Prize winners who signed the peace appeal for Croatia in 1991.[citation needed]

Vladimir Prelog died in

Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb on 27 September 2001. In 2008, a memorial to Prelog was unveiled in Prague.[19]

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1098/rsbm.1999.0095
    .
  2. ^ Vladimir Prelog (1975) Autobiography, the Nobel Committee.
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-8412-2459-5
    .
  4. S2CID 4374006
    .
  5. ^ Horvatić, Petar: 23. srpnja 1906. rođen Vladimir Prelog – dobitnik Nobelove nagrade. Narod.hr. Accessed 2 October 2018
  6. ^ a b Frängsmyr & Forsén 1993, p. 201.
  7. doi:10.1002/cber.19410741004
    .
  8. doi:10.1002/cber.19410741109
    .
  9. doi:10.1002/hlca.194402701143
    .
  10. ^ a b c Frängsmyr & Forsén 1993, p. 202.
  11. ^ "Vladimir Prelog". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  12. ^ "V. Prelog". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  13. ^ "Vladimir Prelog".
  14. ^ Company, Timeline of Nobel Winners. "Vladimir Prelog". www.nobel-winners.com.
  15. ^ Croatian Nobel Prize Winners (list) Archived 24 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine, posta.hr. Retrieved 29 June 2015.(in Croatian)
  16. ISBN 978-1-4381-2980-8
    .
  17. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 26 July 2022.
  18. ^ "Prelog Vladimir". www.sanu.ac.rs. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  19. ^ Spomenik Prelogu u Pragu, matis.hr. Retrieved 16 May 2015.(in Croatian)

Bibliography

  • Frängsmyr, Tore; Forsén, Sture, eds. (1993). Chemistry: 1971-1980. World Scientific.
    ISBN 9789810207861
    .

External links

  • Vladimir Prelog on Nobelprize.org Edit this at Wikidata including the Nobel Lecture, 12 December 1975 Chirality in Chemistry
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vladimir Prelog.
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