R B Woodward , Grandfather of Organic Chemistry.

Greetings from Stardom. This is Jaswant V. A. and I welcome you to the next video of the team Scientists of Modern World. This video is about a well-known personality who has not only made the impossible possible but also extended the knowledge of organic chemistry. He is none other than R. B. Woodward. Stay tuned till the end of the video as we go through the life story of R. B. Woodward. Without any further ado, let's get started. Robert Burns Woodward was born on 10th April 1917 in Boston, United States. He was born to Arthur Woodward and Margaret Burns. His father died at a young age due to influenza in the year 1918 and from then on his mother stood as his backbone. From a very early age, he was attracted towards the topics in chemistry and decided to study the same in future. In the year 1933, he joined the MIT, a prestigious institution, and graduated from it with a PhD in chemistry in the year 1937. Dr. Woodward then taught for a few years in the University of Illinois as a professor. After that, he joined the Harvard University as a research assistant in the chemistry department. As the years followed, he came up with various ideas and observations. The following are some of his contributions to the modern world of organic chemistry. In the year 1944, Woodward along with William Doering succeeded in formally synthesizing quinine. Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and other inflammatory symptoms. This success of R.B. Woodward helped in controlling and curing of the so-thought deadly disease malaria. In the year 1951, Woodward synthesized cortisone and cholesterol. Cortisone is a steroid hormone with the chemical formula C21H28O5. This cortisone is one of the several end products of the process called steroidogenesis. Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in the blood, which can be synthesized both naturally and artificially. It has the chemical formula C27H46O. In the present world of science, both of them can be synthesized using the process of nanotechnology. His major and one of the most fascinating work was the total synthesis of chlorophyll in the year 1960. 46 stages were involved starting from the Norse spiral synthesis to synthesize the chlorophyll molecule. Woodward became the first person to synthesize chlorophyll in the history of chemistry. Chlorophyll has the formula C55H72O5N4Mg with alternate single and double bonds. This type of alternate single and double bond is called as the conjugate bond. R.B. Woodward is known to have synthesized tetracycline, an antibiotic medicine used to treat bacterial infections. He also synthesized cephalosporin C. It is an antibiotic of the cephalosporin class which was synthesized by Woodward in the year 1966. He was also successful in the total synthesis of vitamin B12 in the year 1972. This achievement of Woodward is considered a classic in the field of total synthesis of natural products. R.B. Woodward also determined the structures of lanesterol, reserpine and strychine which helped to understand their formation in a better way in the field of organic chemistry. Not only these, Dr. Woodward was a great professor who has written many books and articles. The most famous books written by him are the Conservation of Orbital Symmetry written in the year 1970 and Antioxidant Nutrition. He has been noted as the greatest synthetic organic chemist of that time and is called the grandfather of organic chemistry. Woodward has received numerous awards for his excellent work in chemistry. Some of them include the Davy Medal, Copley Medal, Willard Gibbs Award, National Medal of Science for Physical Science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to R.B. Woodward for his outstanding achievements in the He was also a part of many science clubs and traveled across the world to spread his ideas and theories. Dr. Woodward died from a heart attack on July 8, 1979. He became a great teacher who taught generations of chemists the fine art of organic synthesis. Throughout his career, he demonstrated that the understanding of chemical reaction mechanisms made possible the planning and successful execution of extended sequences of reactions to build up complex compounds. He is definitely a great scientist who made the understandings of organic chemistry reach to a large mass and made the impossible possible. These are a few facts about the great scientist and it is worth knowing about him. I hope you liked this video and found it informative. I request you all to like, share and comment on my video and don't forget to subscribe to my channel. Will be back with the next video soon. Until then, thank you.