Elias James Corey
172740
224954621
2008-07-11T04:29:20Z
76.206.2.4
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{{Infobox Scientist
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|birth_date = [[July 12]], [[1928]]
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|nationality = [[Image:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg|20px|]] [[United States]]
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|field = [[organic chemistry|organic chemist]]
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|known_for = [[retrosynthetic analysis]]
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|prizes = [[Image:Nobel prize medal.svg|20px]]1990 [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]]
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}}'''Elias James Corey''' (born [[July 12]], [[1928]]) is a renowned [[United States|American]] [[organic chemistry|organic chemist]]. In 1990 he won the [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]] ''"for his development of the theory and methodology of [[organic synthesis]]"'', specifically [[retrosynthetic analysis]].<ref>E. J. Corey, X-M. Cheng, ''The Logic of Chemical Synthesis'', Wiley, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-471-11594-0.</ref><ref>''"The Logic of Chemical Synthesis: Multistep Synthesis of Complex Carbogenic Molecules (Nobel Lecture)"'' E.J. Corey, ''[[Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl.]]'' '''1991''', ''30'', 455.</ref> Regarded by many as one of the greatest living chemists, he has developed numerous synthetic reagents, methodologies, and has advanced the science of [[organic synthesis]] considerably. He was awarded the [[Japan Prize]] in 1989.
He was born "William" to [[Christian]] [[Lebanese]] immigrants in [[Methuen, Massachusetts]], 30 miles north of Boston. His mother changed his name to "Elias" to honor his father who died eighteen months after the birth of his son. His widowed mother, brother, two sisters and an aunt and uncle all lived together in a spacious house- struggling through the depression. He attended Catholic elementary school and Lawrence public High School.[http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1990/corey-autobio.html]
At [[MIT]], he earned both a [[bachelor's degree]] in 1948 and a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] in 1951. Both degrees were in chemistry. Immediately thereafter, he joined the faculty of [[University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign]]. In 1959, he moved to [[Harvard University]], where he is currently an emeritus professor of organic chemistry. He was awarded the [[American Chemical Society]]'s greatest honor, the [[Priestley Medal]], in 2004.
==Major contributions==
===Reagents===
He has developed several new synthetic reagents:
*[[pyridinium chlorochromate|PCC (pyridinium chlorochromate)]], and PDC (pyridinium dichromate): widely used for the oxidation of [[alcohol]]s to [[aldehyde]]s.<ref>Corey, E.J., and Suggs, W. 'Pyridinium Chlorochromate. An Efficient Reagent for Oxidation of Primary and Secondary Alcohols to Carbonyl Compounds', ''[[Tetrahedron Lett.]]'' '''1975''', ''31'', 2647-2650.</ref>
*t-Butyldimethylsilyl ether (TBDMS),<ref>Corey, E. J.; Venkateswarlu, A. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1972''', ''94'', 6190-6191. ({{DOI|10.1021/ja00772a043}})</ref> Triisopropylsilyl ether (TIPS), and Methoxyethoxymethyl (MEM): popular alcohol [[protecting group]]s.
<!-- If they are significant, these publications need to be described in prose, then listed as references.
===Publications===
*The Origin of Greater Than 200 : 1 Enantioselectivity in a Catalytic Diels-Alder Reaction as Revealed by Physical and Chemical Studies," E.J. Corey, T.-P. Loh, T.D. Roper, M.D. Azimioara, and M.C. Noe, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 114, 8290 (1992).
*"Rigid and Highly Enantioselective Catalyst for the Dihydroxylation of Olefins Using Osmium Tetraoxide Clarifies the Origin of Enantiospecificity," E.J. Corey and M.C. Noe, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 115, 12579 (1993).
*"Molecular cloning, characterization, and overexpression of ERG7, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene encoding lanosterol synthase," E.J. Corey, S.P.T. Matsuda, and B. Bartel, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 91, 2211 (1994).
-->
===Methodology===
Several reactions developed in the E.J. Corey labs have become commonplace in modern synthetic organic chemistry. Several reactions have been named after him:
* [[Corey-Bakshi-Shibata reduction]] (CBS reduction): Asymmetric ketone reduction.
* [[Corey-Fuchs reaction]]
* [[Corey-Kim oxidation]]
* [[Corey-Winter olefin synthesis]]
* [[Corey-House-Posner-Whitesides reaction]]
* [[Johnson-Corey-Chaykovsky reaction]]
===Total syntheses===
E. J. Corey and his research group have completed many [[total synthesis|total syntheses]]. His [[1969]] total syntheses of several [[prostaglandin]]s are considered classics.<ref>E. J. Corey, N. M. Weinshenker, T. K. Schaaf, W. Huber, ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1969''', ''91'', 5675-5677. ({{DOI|10.1021/ja01048a062}})</ref><ref>[[K. C. Nicolaou]], E. J. Sorensen, ''Classics in Total Synthesis'', VCH, New York, 1996, ISBN 3-527-29231-4.</ref>
[[Image:Corey Lactone.png|center|400px|The Corey lactone]]
Other notable syntheses include:
* [[Longifolene]]<ref>Corey, E. J.; Ohno, M.; Vatakencherry, P. A.; Mitra, R. B. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1961''', ''83'', 1251-1253. ({{DOI|10.1021/ja01466a056}})</ref><ref>''"Total Synthesis of Longifolene"'' Corey, E. J.; Ohno, M.; Mitra, R. B.; Vatakencherry, P. A. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1964''', ''86'', 478-485. ({{DOI|10.1021/ja01057a039}})</ref>
* [[Ginkgolide A]]<ref>Corey, E. J.; Ghosh, A. K. ''[[Tetrahedron Lett.]]'' '''1988''', ''29'', 3205-3206.</ref> and [[Ginkgolide B|B]]<ref>Corey, E. J.; Kang, M.; Desai, M. C.; Ghosh, A. K.; Houpis, I. N. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1988''', 110, 649-651.</ref><ref>Corey, E. J. ''[[Chem. Soc. Rev.]]'' '''1988''', ''17'',
111-133.</ref>
* [[Lactacystin]]<ref>''"Total Synthesis of Lactacystin"'' Corey, E. J.; Reichard, G. A. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1992''', ''114'', 10677.</ref>
* [[Miroestrol]]<ref>''"Enantioselective Total Synthesis of Miroestrol"'' Corey, E. J.; Wu, L. I. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1993''', ''115'', 9327.</ref>
* [[Ecteinascidin 743]]<ref>Corey, E. J.; Gin, D. Y.; Kania, R. S. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''1996''', ''118'', 9202-9203.</ref>
* [[Oseltamivir]] (Tamiflu)<ref>''"A Short Enantioselective Pathway for the Synthesis of the Anti-Influenza Neuramidase Inhibitor Oseltamivir from 1,3-Butadiene and Acrylic Acid"'' Yeung, Y.-Y.; Hong, S.; Corey, E. J. ''[[J. Am. Chem. Soc.]]'' '''2006''', ''128'', 6310-6311. ({{DOI|10.1021/ja0616433}})</ref>
==Praise==
[[Ryoji Noyori]], the 2001 [[Nobel Prize in Chemistry]] laureate has commented that "without Corey, modern organic synthesis could not exist."
A [http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1990/press.html press release]describing Corey's accomplishments following his receiving the 1990 Nobel Prize stated:
:"To perform the total syntheses successfully, Corey was also obliged to develop some fifty entirely new or considerably improved synthesis reactions or reagents. It is probable that no other chemist has developed such a comprehensive and varied assortment of methods which, often showing the simplicity of genius, have become commonplace in the synthesising laboratory. His systematic use of different types of organometallic reagent has revolutionised recent techniques of synthesis in many respects."
==Graduate student suicides==
Between 1980 and 1998 there were eight graduate-student suicides at Harvard University, half of them happened in the chemistry department, and three of those were suicides of students supervised by Prof. Corey.<ref name=chronicle_suicide>{{cite news
| last = Schneider
| first = Alison
| coauthors =
| title = Harvard Faces the Aftermath of a Graduate Student's Suicide
| work =
| pages =
| language =
| publisher = The Chronicle of Higher Education
| date = 1998
| url = http://chronicle.com/colloquy/98/suicide/background.htm
| accessdate = 2007-11-28 }}</ref>
<ref>For comparison: The MIT had 12 suicides between 1990 and 2002. That's one per year, while Harvard's rate mentioned above was lower than one per ''two'' years.
<br>{{cite news
| last = Sontag
| first = Deborah
| coauthors =
| title = Who Was Responsible For Elizabeth Shin?
| work =
| pages =
| language =
| publisher = The New York Times
| date = 2002-04-28
| url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00EED7113FF93BA15757C0A9649C8B63
| accessdate = 2007-11-28 }}</ref>
The three suicidal students were:
* Felix Chau (died 1987), third-year student supervised by Corey.
* Fung Lam (died 1997), in his sixth month at Harvard. Changed supervisors to Corey ten days before his suicide.
* [[Jason Altom]] (died 1998), Ph.D. student supervised by Corey.
Corey was about 70 years old at the time of the last two suicides. Altom's suicide caused controversy because he explicitly blamed the advisor (Corey) for his problems. Altom died by taking [[potassium cyanide]] in 1998, citing in his farewell note "abusive research supervisors" as one reason for taking his life. Altom's suicide note had been described as a "policy paper," because it contained explicit instructions on how to reform the relationship between students and their supervisors.
<ref>{{cite news
| last = Hall
| first = Stephen S.
| coauthors =
| title = Lethal Chemistry at Harvard
| work =
| pages =
| language =
| publisher = The New York Times
| date = 1998-11-29
| url = http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E5DB1F30F93AA15752C1A96E958260
| accessdate = }}
</ref>
==Woodward-Hoffmann rules==
Recently when awarded the [[Priestley Medal]], E. J. Corey has controversially claimed to have inspired [[Robert Burns Woodward]] prior to the development of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules. This was rebutted by [[Roald Hoffmann]] in the journal [[Angewandte Chemie]].<ref>[[Roald Hoffmann|R. Hoffmann]] ''[[Angew. Chem.]]'' '''2004''', ''43'', 6586-6590. ({{DOI|10.1002/anie.200461440}})</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://ejcorey.com/]
*[http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1990/index.html Elias James Corey]
*[http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/1990/corey-lecture.pdf Elias James Corey Nobel Lecture] ([[PDF]])
*[http://chronicle.com/colloquy/98/suicide/background.htm Story in the Chronicle of Higher Education about the Altom suicide and two others in this lab]
*[http://www.paulbracher.com/blog/?p=204 A digital photograph purporting to be the "traffic light" regulating Corey's potential office visitors]
{{Nobel Prize in Chemistry Laureates 1976-2000}}
{{Wolf Prize in Chemistry}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Corey, Elias James}}
[[Category:1928 births]]
[[Category:Members of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American chemists]]
[[Category:Arab Americans]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:Lebanese Americans]]
[[Category:People from Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Chemistry]]
[[Category:Wolf Prize in Chemistry laureates]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni]]
[[Category:National Medal of Science laureates]]
[[Category:Priestley Medal]]
[[Category:Japan Prize laureates]]
[[Category:Foreign Members of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign faculty]]
[[Category:People from Methuen, Massachusetts]]
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