K. C. Nicolaou Receives the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry
Nov. 9, 2010
K.C. Nicolaou
The Franklin Institute recognized for K.C. Nicoloau, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego and professor of chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute "for his achievements in synthetic organic chemistry, particularly for the development of methods for preparing complex substances found in nature, which have potential applications in the field of medicine."
Nicolaou works in a specialized field of organic chemistry called total synthesis, which is the creation of organic molecules from scratch in the laboratory. Through total synthesis, rare molecules found in nature can be made in great numbers for study or to serve as the basis for drugs, or entirely new types of complex organic molecules can be made from simpler precursor molecules.
New strategies and methods Dr. Nicolaou has devised in direct synthesis have vastly expanded the toolbox available for his colleagues in their own work. By demonstrating that even the most complex and diverse organic compounds can be synthesized with the proper methods, he has advanced the science of total synthesis and with it, the experimental techniques of biology, medicine, and chemistry that depend upon it.
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