James Shoolery

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James Nelson Shoolery , called Jim Shoolery , (born June 25, 1925 in Worland (Wyoming) ; † September 24, 2015 in Half Moon Bay , California ) was an American chemist and pioneer of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). He led the development of the first commercial NMR spectrometer for chemical applications (Varian's A-60).

Live and act

Shoolery graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1948 and received a PhD in chemistry from Caltech in 1952 . In 1952 he went to Varian Associates and stayed there for the remainder of his career until retirement in 1990. He became head of the laboratory for NMR applications and then marketing manager of the Instrument Division (1962 to 1969) and was largely responsible for Varian's global expansion. From 1969 to 1972 he was an independent consultant and then a senior application chemist at Varian in the Analytical Instrument Division. After retiring in 1990, he was a consultant to Varian. Most recently he lived in Half Moon Bay.

When he came to the Varian company, Varian was best known for microwave amplifier tubes and only had a small NMR range, a new development started by physicists at the time. Shoolery brought his knowledge and perspectives as a chemist and developed their first high-resolution NMR spectrometer at Varian, which was sold to the oil company Humble Oil (later part of Exxon). In the 1950s the magnets were improved and NMR devices for 30 to 100 MHz (1959) were developed at Varian. However, it was difficult to sell because the devices were expensive, difficult to use and initially only suitable for small molecules. Shoolery recognized that NMR would only prevail if standardized, easy-to-use, inexpensive devices were available, such as those for IR spectrometers back then. He led the development of the first mass market NMR device, the Varian A-60, which came out in 1961 and was a great success because of its ease of use. It was relatively cheap, reliable, gave reproducible results, used calibrated paper for recording, and could be used by students and techniques after reading the manual that came with it. In 2011 it was recognized as a milestone in chemistry by the American Chemical Society . Shoolery was also involved in the development of the successor to the A-60 (CFT-20 and FT-80) at Varian.

To promote applicability, Shoolery founded NMR Applications Laboratories in Palo Alto, Pittsburgh and other countries and was its director from 1952 to 1962. Scientists could experiment there and see for themselves the usefulness of NMR. An NMR Spectral Catalog was published, there was a regular popular advertising section in Analytical Chemistry and later in the Journal of the American Chemical Society ( NMR at Work ) and Shoolery gave numerous lectures and courses. Shoolery estimated in 1993 that around 20,000 chemists had attended his lectures and courses by the late 1950s. In the 1970s he promoted the use of microsamples. He recognized the usefulness of 2D-NMR and multi-pulse sequences for analytical organic chemistry, especially with natural products, and together with Steve Pratt developed the APT sequence for organic spectra with carbon isotope 13.

The Shoolery rules for predicting chemical shifts arose from his work with BP Dailey on the influence of electronegativity on NMR parameters.

He has published over 200 scientific papers and held five patents. He received the ACS Sargent Award in 1961, the Anachem Award in Analytical Chemistry in 1982, Industrial R&D Magazine Scientist of the Year in 1983, and a Varian Fellow in 1989.

Fonts

  • A Basic Guide to NMR, Varian Assoc. 1972
  • Recent developments in 13C and proton NMR, Journal of Natural Products, Volume 47, 1984, pp. 226-259
  • NMR spectroscopy in the beginning Analytical Chemistry, Vol. 65, 1993, 731A-741A.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Birth and career dates Pamela Kalte American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ↑ Dailey, Shoolery, The Electron Withdrawal Power of Substitute Groups, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Volume 77, 1955, pp. 3977-3981
personal data
SURNAME Shoolery, James
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Shoolery, James Nelson (full name); Shoolery, Jim
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Worland, Wyoming
DATE OF DEATH September 24, 2015
Place of death Half Moon Bay (City, California)