Química

Louis F. Fieser
April 7,1899 - July 25,1977 Louis Frederick Fieser, one of the most prolific contributors to Organic Syntheses, as well as a member of the Advisory Board and Editor-in-Chief of Volume 17, died on July 25, 1977, of pneumonia at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts. He is survived by his wife, Mary. Born in Columbus, Ohio, on April 7, 1899, he was the son of Louis Frederick Fieserand Martha Victoria Kershaw Fieser. He attended Douglas School and East High in Columbus, and then Williams College, where he received the A.B. degree in 1920. Although his major was chemistry, he was also strongly attracted to English and Philosophy, and he was a member of the unbeaten varsity football team of 1919. He completed work for the Ph.D. degree at Harvard in three and one-half years, thencontinued working for a year and a half with his major professor, James Conant, on biochemical research. Immediately thereafter, in 1924, he spent a short time doing research in Germany, then at Oxford, before accepting a teaching position at Bryn Mawr College, where he remained an assistant and associate professor until 1930, when he was invited to join the Harvard faculty. At this time MaryPeters, a member of his second class at Bryn Mawr, entered Radcliffe College to do graduate work under his direction. Her formal candidacy for the Ph.D. degree was brought to a close by their marriage in 1932; however, she continued to do research and was appointed Research Fellow of the Department of Chemistry. In 1937 Fieser was promoted to full professor, and in 1939 he became the Sheldon EmeryProfessor of Organic Chemistry, a position he held until 1968, when he became Professor Emeritus. During his early years as an academician Fieser became one of the world's leading experts in quinone chemistry, his most notable achievement in this area being an elegant synthesis of Vitamin Ki in 1939. He also developed an interest in the cancer problem, and by 1938 he had a large group ofcollaborators engaged in the synthesis of

carcinogenic and related hydrocarbons in an effort to discover how these substances act. Out of this study came a facile synthesis of the potent carcinogen methylcholanthrene. He had occasion to prepare a comparison specimen of this substance with his own hands, according to the classical method, starting with the bile acid desoxycholic acid. Thus his interest insteroids was engendered, paving the way for a course, then a book, "Natural Products Related to Phenanthrene," which covered this exciting new field. He never lost interest in this area, and later, after two further editions of the phenanthrene book (the last jointly authored with Mary), Louis and Mary Fieser published the famous book entitled "Steroids," a classic in the field. With the adventof World War II Fieser was obliged to suspend all previous research and teaching to work on problems for the National Defense Research Committee. Thus for three and one half years he was involved with the development of new incendiaries (e. g., Napalm), antimalarials, and syntheses of cortisone. He became especially interested in the antimalarial program, which included a large number ofcollaborators, and which yielded some extremely potent new substances in the naphthoquinone series. Professor Fieser always had a very strong interest in teaching, and his dynamic and vibrant personality, along with his original and colorful style of lecturing in the elementary organic course, served to communicate to students his love of science and the pleasure to be derived from a well-executedexperiment. Many of his former students remember this course as a great influence on their scientific careers. From his teaching evolved the widely adopted textbook "Organic Chemistry ," written in collaboration with his wife, which went through several editions and was translated into eight foreign languages. An expanded version of this book was called "Advanced Organic Chemistry." The Fiesers proved to...