Kendall Houk
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Rjwilmsi
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{{Infobox_Scientist
|name = Kendall Newcomb Houk
|image =
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|birth_date = {{birth date|1943|2|27}}
|birth_place = [[Nashville, Tennessee]], [[United States]]
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|field = [[Chemistry]]
|work_institution = [[U.C.L.A.]]
|alma_mater = [[Harvard University]]
|doctoral_advisor = [[Robert Burns Woodward]] [[Image:Nobel prize medal.svg|20px]]
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}}'''Kendall Newcomb Houk''' (born [[1943]]) is a Professor of [[Chemistry]] at the [[University of California, Los Angeles]].
==Life==
Professor Houk was born in [[Nashville, Tennessee]], in 1943. He received his A.B. (1964), B.S. (1966), and Ph.D. (1968) degrees from [[Harvard University]], working with R. A. Olofson as an undergraduate and [[Robert Burns Woodward]] as a graduate student in the area of experimental tests of orbital symmetry selection rules. In 1968, he joined the faculty at [[Louisiana State University]], [[Baton Rouge]] becoming Professor in 1976 . In 1980, he moved to the [[University of Pittsburgh]], and in 1986, he moved to [[University of California, Los Angeles]], becoming a Distinguished Professor in 1987. From 1988-1990, he was Director of the Chemistry Division of the [[National Science Foundation]].
He is currently the Chair of the NIH Synthesis and Biological Chemistry-A Study Section and is a Senior Editor of Accounts of Chemical Research. He is Director of the UCLA Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program, an NIH-supported training grant.
==Research Interests==
Kendall Houk research focuses on [[theoretical chemistry|theoretical]] and [[computational chemistry|computational organic chemistry]]. His group is involved in developments of rules to understand reactivity, [[computer modeling]] of complex [[organic reaction]]s, and experimental tests of the predictions of theory. He collaborates prodigiously with chemists all over the world. Among current interests are the theoretical investigations and design of enzyme-catalyzed reactions, a collaboration that has recently led to the first successful design and synthesis of enzymes for non-natural reactions,[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06879.html],[http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/319/5868/1387] the quantitative modeling of asymmetric reactions used in synthesis,[http://pubs3.acs.org/acs/journals/doilookup?in_doi=10.1021/ja065762u],[http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/2007/129/i33/abs/ja073528d.html] the mechanisms and dynamics of [[pericyclic reaction]]s and competing [[diradical]] processes, including a new theory of 1,3-dipolar cycloadditions,[http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/2007/129/i35/abs/ja0734086.html],[http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/orlef7/2008/10/i08/abs/ol8003657.html] the mechanisms of organometallic reactions,[http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/2007/129/i42/abs/ja075785o.html],[http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jacsat/2008/130/i08/abs/ja076444d.html] and the [[molecular dynamic]]s and reactions of [[hemicarcerand]]s and other [[host-guest complexe]]s. He has published over 700 articles in refereed journals and is among the 100 most-cited chemists.[http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/formBrowse.cgi]
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Houk works in the era of [[theoretical organic chemistry]], combining state-of-the-art [[quantum mechanics]] with [[experimental chemistry]] to discover principles that govern organic reactivity and selectivity. Houk created a frontier molecular orbital theory of [[regioselectivity]] in [[cycloaddition]]s. A series of his papers showed for the first time how the regioselectivity of [[1,3-dipolar cycloaddition]]s could be understood and predicted, based upon frontier molecular orbital theory. His generalizations about the shapes and energies of frontier molecular orbitals of [[alkene]]s, [[diene]]s, and [[1,3-dipole]]s, are in common use today.{{Fact|date=February 2008}} This year, he published a distortion/interaction theory that represents an advance in understanding these reactions and identifies factors beyond FMO interactions as control elements determining reactivity.
Houk has provided a rigorous theoretical treatment of [[carbene]] reactivity as well as a general conceptual model for understanding reactions of these reactive intermediates. He showed how entropy control of reactivity and negative activation barriers both could be explained by a new, unified model in which reactions had no enthalpic barriers but do have significant entropic - and, therefore, free energy - barriers. The theory has had an impact on the interpretation of fast organic reactions.
Houk's work has made the transition states of pericyclic reactions nearly as familiar as ground states of organic molecules. His investigations of potential energy surfaces for p[[ericyclic reaction]]s for two decades have led to thorough understanding of the geometries and energies of transition structures for all types of pericyclic reactions. These calculations show that such reactions are synchronous in the absence of unsymmetrical substituents. Houk discovered that there are normal bond lengths for transition structures of hydrocarbon pericyclic reactions. He provided an explanation of Zewail’s femtosecond dynamics measurements for hydrocarbons and made new generalizations about conical intersections involved in excited state reactions.
Houk discovered a powerful and unanticipated substituent effect in [[electrocyclic reaction]]s of substituted [[cyclobutene]]s. Transition state calculations for the reaction of cyclobutenes led to the theory of "torquoselectivity," as he named it, a [[stereoselectivity]] arising from preferential direction of rotations of the terminal substituents accompanied by a torque on the breaking bond. The better the donor, the greater the preference for outward rotation. A prediction was made that a [[formyl group]] would rotate inward preferentially, to give the less stable product; Houk's group at UCLA verified this prediction experimentally. This major extension of the Woodward-Hoffmann rules has blossomed into a general principle of stereoselectivity, and experimental examples continue to be discovered in many labs.
Houk pioneered the modeling of transition states with force field methods. Even before modern searching tools existed, ab initio calculations were used to locate geometries of transition states and to determine force constants for distortions away from these preferred geometries. These developments showed more generally how computational techniques could be useful tool for synthetic organic chemists. The whole concept of "transition state modeling" has developed from Houk's pioneering contributions.
Houk has recently made a major contribution to the understanding of molecular recognition. The discovery that a conformational process ("gating") is the rate-determining step in complex formation and dissociation of Cram's hemicarceplexes has produced a new design element in host design. The ability to compute rates of such reactions have been first developed in his laboratories. The investigation of stabilities and mechanisms of catenanes and rotaxanes has already led to discovery of gating phenomena and electrostatic stabilization of these complexes.
A series of publications combining [[kinetic isotope effect]] computations with experimental measures of isotope effects in the literature or from Singleton's group have established the nature of transition states of several classic organic processes: the [[Diels-Alder reaction]], [[Cope rearrangement|Cope]] and [[Claisen rearrangement]]s, peracid epoxidations, carbene and triazolinedione cycloadditions, and the [[osmium tetroxide]] [[bis-hydroxylation]]. The three-dimensional structures of transition states have become nearly as well-understood as the stable structures, largely due to his efforts.
Houk's recent work on catalytic antibodies and enzymes increased understanding of the quantitative aspects of these complex phenomena. He established quantitative comparisons of host-guest complex binding energies and of the effectiveness of enzymes in biological catalysts. Now he has teamed with David Baker to predict protein structures that will catalyze non-natural reactions.
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==Awards==
Houk was Chairman of the UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 1991-1994. He is a member of the [[International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science]]. He was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 2002 and is a Fellow of the [[AAAS]] and of the [[WATOC]]. Professor Houk was a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar and a Fellow of the [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]]. He received the L.S.U. Distinguished Research Master Award in 1968, the von [[Humboldt Foundation]] U.S. Senior Scientist Award in 1981, the [[Akron]] A.C.S. Section Award in 1984, and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award in 1988. He was the 1991 recipient of the ACS [[James Flack Norris]] Award in Physical Organic Chemistry and was the 1998 winner of the Schrödinger Medal of the World Association of Theoretically Oriented Chemists (WATOC). He was the Faculty Research Lecturer at UCLA for 1998. He received the [[Bruylants Chair]] from the [[University of Louvain-la-Neuve]] in Belgium in 1998 and an honorary doctorate (Dr. rer. nat. h. c.) from the [[University of Essen]] in Germany in 1999. He won the [[Tolman Medal]] of the Southern California Section of the [[American Chemical Society]] in 1999. He has been an [[Erskine Fellow]] in New Zealand and a [[Lady Davis Fellow]] at the [[Technion]] in [[Haifa]], [[Israel]]. In 2001, he was a [[JSPS]] Fellow in Japan.
==External links==
*[http://www.chem.ucla.edu/dept/Faculty/houk.html/index.html Professor Houk's Website]
*[http://www.iaqms.org/members/IAQMS.member.Houk.html His International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science page]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Houk, Kendall N.}}
[[Category:1943 births]]
[[Category:American chemists]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Louisiana State University faculty]]
[[Category:International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science members]]