October 2001 Meeting Basolo Award Presentation

Joint Meeting of the Northwestern University Department of Chemistry and the Chicago ACS Section

Date:  Friday, October 19, 2001

NOTE: The Basolo Medal Lecture will be held at 4:30 P.M. - 5:45 P.M. at Northwestern University.

BASOLO MEDAL LECTURE LOCATION:

Northwestern University
Technological Institute
2145 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL
Lecture Room 3

Abstract:     The element boron neighbors carbon in the periodic table, exists in plentiful supply throughout the Universe and reaches a long arm across the periodic table in order to form stable compounds with a wide variety of other elements. The most important chemical property shared by carbon and boron is the ability of both these elements to form large families of discrete structures by bonding to themselves. Thus, boron forms stable bonds to other boron atoms and carbon displays the same behavior while creating organic chemistry. Advances made during the past fifty years have now established polyhedral borane chemistry at a level of maturity capable of supporting an ever-increasing scope of aromatic polyhedral structures having extraordinary chemical, thermal and photochemical stabilities. Such properties provide unique applications not possible with other elements, including carbon. While borane and hydrocarbon derivatives share many related structural features and functions, borane species are not attacked by enzyme systems and are resistant to biodegradation. Another unique feature of boron is its isotopic distribution as 10B (20%) and 11B (80%) accompanied by the very great propensity of 10B to capture a slow neutron and fission to cytotoxic 4He and 7Li nuclei while liberating about 2.4 MeV of kinetic energy and an 0.5 MeV g-photon (the boron neutron capture reaction). This nuclear reaction may find applications in cancer and rheumatoid arthritis therapy. The Basolo Lecture will demonstrate the parallelism of boron and carbon chemistries and new fundamental discoveries at the boron-carbon interface. Applications of this new field of organometallic chemistry include: (1) nanotechnology and molecular recognition; (2) anion complexation, supramolecular chemistry and electrophilic catalysis; (3) hyperfunctionalized polyhedral boranes, such as icosahedral [B12(OCOR)12]2- and [B12(OR)12]2-, known as closomers and useful in many applications; (4) cell-selective species for drug delivery and targeting cell nuclei; (5) new pharmacophore structures for drug discovery; (6) catabolism-resistant radionuclide carriers for diagnosis and therapy of disease; (7) non-coordinating anions for remediation of radioactive waste and (8) cell-selective, non-toxic boron-rich neutron target compounds for boron neutron capture therapy of cancer. Biography:     M. Frederick Hawthorne was born in 1928 in Kansas and received his early education in Kansas and Missouri. After three years at the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy, Rolla, Missouri as a chemical engineering student, Professor Hawthorne transferred to Pomona College in Claremont, CA and received his B.A. degree in chemistry in 1949. Hawthorne received his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1953. He then served as a postdoctoral associate (physical-organic chemistry) at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. He was at the Rohm and Haas Company, where he launched his career in borane cluster chemistry, from 1954 until 1962. In the Fall of 1960, he served as a Visiting Lecturer in physical-organic chemistry at Harvard University. In 1962, Dr. Hawthorne became a full professor at the University of California, Riverside, and he transferred to UCLA in 1969. In 1998 he was appointed University Professor of Chemistry, the most distinguished title bestowed upon faculty by the Regents of the University of California. Hawthorne joins nineteen colleagues sharing this title university-wide. Hawthorne is the author or co-author of more than 480 research papers, 26 patents and portions of 9 books. One of his students was a space shuttle astronaut: Anna Lee Fisher (nee Sims), M.S. (chemistry), M.D. Hawthorne's research work in borane cluster chemistry has been internationally recognized and widely honored. As well as many other honors, he was the 1994 recipient of the Willard Gibbs Medal presented by the Chicago Section of the ACS. In recognition of his seminal contributions to borane cluster chemistry, Hawthorne received the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry in 1973. Hawthorne is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (Chemical Sciences Award in 1997) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1966, Hawthorne was appointed Associate Editor of Inorganic Chemistry with Professor Edward L. King as Editor. In 1969, Hawthorne became Editor-in-Chief and he was re-appointed through 2000. His many years of service as editor have seen Inorganic Chemistry grow into a biweekly publication with an unsurpassed international reputation.