Alan Woodworth Johnson

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Alan Woodworth Johnson (born September 29, 1917 in South Shields , Tyne and Wear , † December 5, 1982 ) was a British chemist ( organic chemistry ).

Alan Johnson grew up near Newcastle and went to school in Morpeth . His father James William Johnson (1883–1955) was a nautical optician and a prominent figure in English adult education and came from a shipbuilding family. The family's financial circumstances were tight and he earned his first living at a shipyard, where he measured gas levels in tanks. From 1936 he studied at Imperial College London with a Royal Scholarship, obtained his bachelor's degree in 1938 and received his doctorate there in 1940 under Ewart Jones . During the Second World War , he did research on important military work at Imperial College and then went to ICI in their color works. In 1946 he went as an ICI Fellow to Alexander Robertus Todd in Cambridge and in 1951 became a Fellow of Christ's College . In 1955 he became a professor at the University of Nottingham . From 1968 to 1982 he was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Sussex .

At first he dealt with the chemistry of acetylenes and vitamin A, later with the chemistry of natural substances ( porphyrins , vitamin B12, antibiotics, chemical aspects of green aphids (Aphididae), germination factors of plants especially in parasites such as Striga and other summer herbs ). At the University of Sussex he worked on insect pheromones and weevils of the genus Scolytus , which transmit the fungus for Dutch elm disease, and how they can be controlled as fungus carriers. He has given popular lectures on Sex and Violence in the Insect World in chemistry schools nationwide .

In 1972 he received the Chemical Society Prize for Organic Synthesis for his work on porphyrenes. In 1980 he received the Davy Medal , in 1980 the Robert Robinson Award and he was a Fellow of the Royal Society since 1965 . 1977/78 he was President of the Royal Society of Chemistry .

Fonts

  • The Chemistry of Acetylene Compounds, E. Arnold, 2 volumes, 1946, 1950
  • The Art of Organic Chemistry, University of Nottingham 1957

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ biographical data, publications and Academic pedigree of Alan Woodworth Johnson at academictree.org, accessed on February 15 2018th
personal data
SURNAME Johnson, Alan Woodworth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British chemist
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH South Shields , Tyne and Wear
DATE OF DEATH 5th December 1982