Alfred P. Wolf

Alfred P. Wolf at the time of the Manhattan Project

Alfred P. Wolf (born February 23, 1923 in Manhattan , † December 17, 1998 ) was an American chemist .

Wolf's father was a German baker on a passenger steamer and got stuck with his wife in New York when the First World War broke out. Wolf studied at Columbia University , interrupted by World War II , in which he worked on the Manhattan Project under Richard W. Dodson in Los Alamos. He then continued his studies at Columbia University with William von Eggers Doering . He then conducted research at the Brookhaven National Laboratory , particularly the use of carbon isotopes (such as C14 and later C 11 with lower radiation doses) to study unusual organic reactions. Among other things, he devoted himself to the difficult problem of the synthesis of tetrahedrane and investigated the reaction of fluorine with aromatics. Wolf built a globally renowned chemical research group at the Brookhaven Laboratory. In 1957 he became a senior scientist in his laboratory. From 1983 to 1987 he was head of the chemistry department in Brookhaven.

He also taught evening classes in organic chemistry at Columbia University's School of General Studies for 30 years .

Wolf was a pioneer in the development of radioactive tracer molecules from reactions with hot atoms (those with high translational energy ). His radiotracer FDG with fluorine 18, developed in his group in 1976 (with Tatsuo Ido, Joanna Fowler ), is often used in positron emission tomography (PET). The suggestion of its use for these purposes came from Wolf after Louis Sokoloff had previously discovered that radioactive glucose analogues could be used to record brain activity (still using carbon-14). Another isotope he frequently used was carbon-11.

In 1971 he received the Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry . In 1988 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences . He received the Paul Aebersold Award from the Society of Nuclear Medicine in 1981, the Hevesy Nuclear Medicine Pioneer Award in 1991 and the Melvin Calvin Award from the International Isotope Society in 1997. In 1983 he received an honorary doctorate in Uppsala .

literature

• Joanna S. Fowler, Michael J. Welch: Alfred P. Wolf, Biographical Memoirs National Academy of Sciences, Volume 78, pp. 355-367, online