Robert J. Ferrier

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Robin Ferrier

Robert John "Robin" Ferrier (born August 7, 1932 in Edinburgh , Scotland , † July 11, 2013 in Wellington , New Zealand ) was a British-New Zealand chemist .

Life

Robert J. Ferrier was called Robin Ferrier because of family traditions. He attended George Heriot's School all his school days. In 1954 he successfully completed his Bachelor of Science at the University of Edinburgh and in 1957 received his Ph.D. under the direction of Gerald Aspinall. in research on polysaccharides . In addition to his work as a lecturer at Birkbeck College at the University of London , Ferrier then focused on monosaccharides . In the early 1960s, he was with Melvin Calvin at the University of California at Berkeley . During this time he saw Calvin win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry . In 1970, Ferrier moved to Victoria University in New Zealand, where he took the position as first chairman of organic chemistry. There he continued his research on monosaccharides, specializing in their pharmaceutical interest as starting materials for the synthesis of compounds that are not carbohydrates . Ferrier was selected to be a member of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1977 and a member of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry in 1972. In the 1980s he served on the Panel on Toxic Substances and was responsible for the Lead in the Environment report for the Royal Society of New Zealand. After retiring from Victoria University in 1998, he became a professor emeritus . Ferrier began what he called an "alleged retirement" by working at the Institute Industrial Research Limited in the field of carbohydrate chemistry. During this time he was engaged in promoting the next generation of carbohydrate chemists in New Zealand. As a mentor, Ferrier introduced young chemists to research and assisted with publications. In August 2012, Ferrier celebrated its 80th birthday and said goodbye to the second, now complete retirement. In the same year, the Ferrier Foundation was launched, which annually honors a natural scientist and brings him to New Zealand to meet chemistry students and lecturers. Ferrier died in Wellington (New Zealand) in 2013, leaving behind a wife and two children. Victoria University has had a research group (Ferrier Research Institute) named after him since 2014.

Ferrier was the twin brother of Barbara M. Ferrier (1932-2006), chemist and professor at McMaster University in Hamilton , Canada.

research

Ferrier explained the mechanism of the rearrangement reaction from 1,2-glycal to unsaturated glycosyl compounds, which was discovered by Emil Fischer and is now known under the Ferrier reaction named after him .

Many of his best discoveries are based on unexpected chemical observations that often led to unexplored areas. An important example is the Ferrier rearrangement named after him , in which exocyclic enol ethers are converted into substituted cyclohexanones .

Publications

Ferrier published 180 research articles, scientific reports and books in his 50 years of career and gave ten lectures at international conferences. His scientific reports particularly served to support the chemical community - of the greatest value, however, was the book Monosacchride Chemistry , which he shared with Peter Collins published in 1972 and 1995 to the book monosaccharide: Their Chemistry and Their roles in natural products expanded .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Royal Society Te Apārangi - Robert John (Robin) Ferrier. Retrieved April 26, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b Richard Furneaux, Ralf Schwörer, Sarah Wilcox: Robert John (Robin) Ferrier 1932–2013 . In: Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biochemistry . tape 72 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  3. ^ GO Aspinall, RJ Ferrier: 840. The constitution of barley husk hemicellulose . In: Journal of the Chemical Society (Resumed) . 1957, ISSN  0368-1769 , p. 4188 , doi : 10.1039 / jr9570004188 ( rsc.org [accessed April 26, 2019]).
  4. ^ Rachel Barrowman: Victoria University of Wellington: 1899-1999: a history . Victoria Univ. Press, 1999, ISBN 0-86473-369-0 ( worldcat.org [accessed April 26, 2019]).
  5. ^ Brian Halton: Chemistry at Victoria, the Wellington University: a personalized account of the hundred years from 1899 . Second ed.Wellington, New Zealand 2014, ISBN 978-0-475-12408-1 , pp. 53-54 .
  6. ^ A tribute to professor emeritus Barbara Ferrier. McMaster University, January 6, 2006, accessed October 2, 2019 .
  7. ^ A b Robert J. Ferrier: Unsaturated carbohydrates. Part 21. A carbocyclic ring closure of a hex-5-enopyranoside derivative . In: Journal of the Chemical Society, Perkin Transactions 1 . 1979, ISSN  0300-922X , p. 1455 , doi : 10.1039 / p19790001455 ( rsc.org [accessed April 26, 2019]).
  8. ↑ a b Regine Blattner, Robert J. Ferrier: Direct synthesis of 6-oxabicyclo [3.2.1] octane derivatives from deoxyinososes . In: Carbohydrate Research . tape 150 , no. 1 , 1986, pp. 151–162 , doi : 10.1016 / 0008-6215 (86) 80012-X ( elsevier.com [accessed April 26, 2019]).
  9. ^ Robert John Ferrier, PM Collins: Monosaccharide chemistry . Penguin, Harmondsworth 1972, ISBN 0-14-080267-3 .
  10. ↑ Robert J. Ferrier, PM Collins: Monosaccharides: their chemistry and their roles in natural products . Wiley & Sons, Chichester 1995, ISBN 0-471-95343-1 .
personal data
SURNAME Ferrier, Robert J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ferrier, Robin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-New Zealand chemist
DATE OF BIRTH August 7, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Edinburgh , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH July 11th 2013
Place of death Wellington , New Zealand