A nobel synthesis

摘要

The first Nobel Prize for chemistry was awarded in 1901 (to Jacobus van't Hoff). Up to 2010, the chemistry prize has been awarded 102 times, to 160 laureates, of whom only four have been women (1). The most prominent area for awarding the Nobel Prize for chemistry has been in organic chemistry, in which the Nobel committee includes natural products, synthesis, catalysis, and polymers. This amounts to 24 of the prizes. Reading the achievements of the earlier organic chemists who were recipients of the prize, we see that they were drawn to synthesis by the structural analysis and characterisation of natural compounds. In order to prove the structure conclusively, some synthesis, even if only a partial synthesis, had to be attempted. It is impressive to read of some of the structures which were deduced using only classical degradation and synthesis reactions, for all this work dates from an age before the everyday application of spectroscopic analysis.