Barry M. Trost (born June 13, 1941, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

) is an American chemist who is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor Emeritus in the School of Humanities and Sciences at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. The Tsuji-Trost reaction and the

Trost ligand The Trost ligand is a diphosphine used in the palladium- catalyzed Trost asymmetric allylic alkylation. Other C2-symmetric ligands derived from ''trans''-1,2-diaminocyclohexane (DACH) have been developed, such as the (''R'',''R'')-DACH- naphthy ...

are named after him. He is prominent for advancing the concept of

atom economy Atom economy (atom efficiency/percentage) is the conversion efficiency of a chemical process in terms of all atoms involved and the desired products produced. The simplest definition was introduced by Barry Trost in 1991 and is equal to the ratio ...

Early life and education

Trost was born in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

on June 13, 1941. He studied at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and obtained his B.A. in 1962. He then attended the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

for graduate school, where he worked with Herbert O. House on enolate anions, the

Mannich reaction In organic chemistry, the Mannich reaction is a three-component organic reaction that involves the amino alkylation of an acidic proton next to a carbonyl () functional group by formaldehyde () and a primary or secondary amine () or ammonia (). ...

, and the

Robinson annulation The Robinson annulation is a chemical reaction used in organic chemistry for ring formation. It was discovered by Robert Robinson in 1935 as a method to create a six membered ring by forming three new carbon–carbon bonds. The method uses a keto ...

. Trost graduated with his Ph.D. in 1965.

Independent career

Trost moved to the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

to begin his independent career, and was promoted to Professor of Chemistry in 1969, and the Vilas Research Professor in 1982. In 1987, he moved to

as Professor of Chemistry, and was appointed the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of Humanities and Sciences in 1990. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Chemistry. , Trost has an

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 161 according to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

and of 140 (1040 documents) according to

Scopus Scopus is Elsevier's abstract and citation database launched in 2004. Scopus covers nearly 36,377 titles (22,794 active titles and 13,583 inactive titles) from approximately 11,678 publishers, of which 34,346 are peer-reviewed journals in top-l ...

Research

Trost's research focused on chemical synthesis. In order to build complex target molecules from simple molecules, Trost developed new reactions and reagents, and utilized c ascade reactions and tandem reactions. Target molecules have potential applications as novel catalysts, as well as antibiotic and anti-tumor therapeutics.

References

Sources

Biographical Data at Trost's Home Page

External links

* 21st-century American chemists Organic chemists 1941 births Scientists from Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania alumni Living people Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Stanford University faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty {{US-chemist-stub