Eugene van Tamelen
Eugene Earle van Tamelen (born July 20, 1925 in Zeeland (Michigan) , † December 12, 2009 in Los Altos (California) ) was an American chemist .
biography
Van Tamelen began studying design at Hope College in Holland (Michigan) to become an automotive designer. However, after a course in organic chemistry , he decided to begin studying chemistry , which he graduated from Hope College in 1947. While still a student, he wrote a technical article entitled "The Malonic Ester Reaction With 1-Halo-nitroparaffins" in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). In 1950 he earned a doctorate from Harvard University .
He then became a lecturer in the chemistry department of the University of Wisconsin . In 1962 he accepted a position as professor of chemistry at Stanford University and worked there until his retirement in 1987. During his teaching and research activities, he published more than 150 other articles in JACS. One of his areas of work was research into the body's own production of cholesterol . He researched the molecule squalene oxide , which was a key component in a complex reaction that creates a tangle of connected carbon rings in the core of cholesterol molecules. In 1963 he also succeeded in the artificial production of pure Dewar benzene .
His students included, among other things, the future Nobel Laureate in Chemistry , Barry Sharpless .
For his services he was made a member of the National Academy of Sciences , in 1972 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Eric Jacobsen , Sheldon Emery Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, recognized him as "an organic chemist who asked really big questions that exceeded the specific discipline of organic chemistry, and one of the first to do that investigated what we call the biomimetic approach to synthesis . Van Tamelen's research into squalene oxide provided a fabulous discovery that laid the foundation for a number of discoveries in chemistry and pharmaceuticals. "
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tamelen, Eugene van |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Tamelen, Eugene Earle van |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American chemist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 20, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Zeeland (Michigan) |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 12, 2009 |
| Place of death | Los Altos (California) |