Corwin Herman Hansch (October 6, 1918 – May 8, 2011) was a Professor of Chemistry at

Pomona College Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. He became known as the 'father of computer-assisted molecule design.'

Education and Career

Hansch was born on October 6, 1918 in

Kenmare, North Dakota Kenmare is a city in Ward County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 961 at the 2020 census. Kenmare is part of the Minot Micropolitan Statistical Area. History Kenmare was platted in 1897. The city most likely was named after ...

. He earned a BS from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

in 1940 and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

in 1944. He briefly worked as a postdoc at the

University of Illinois Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois sy ...

. Hansch worked on the Manhattan Project at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

and as a group leader at DuPont Nemours in

Richland, Washington Richland () is a city in Benton County, Washington, United States. It is located in southeastern Washington at the confluence of the Yakima and the Columbia Rivers. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 60,560. Along with the nearby c ...

. In February 1946 he received an academic position at

, where he taught until 1988. Hansch completed sabbaticals at

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

with

Vladimir Prelog Vladimir Prelog (23 July 1906 – 7 January 1998) was a Croatian-Swiss organic chemist who received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Prelog was born and grew up in ...

and at

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

with

Rolf Huisgen Rolf Huisgen (; 13 June 1920 – 26 March 2020) was a German chemist. His importance in synthetic organic chemistry extends to the enormous influence he had in post-war chemistry departments in Germany and Austria, due to a large number of his H ...

. Hansch taught

Organic Chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J.; ...

for many years at Pomona College, and was known for giving complex lectures without using notes. His course in Physical Bio-Organic Medicinal Chemistry was ground-breaking at an undergraduate level. Hansch may be best known as the father of the concept of

quantitative structure-activity relationship Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Meter (poetry), Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantit ...

(QSAR), the quantitative correlation of the physicochemical properties of molecules with their biological activities. He is also noted for the Hansch equation, which is used in *Multivariate Statistics - Multivariate statistics is a set of statistical tools to analyse data (e.g., chemical and biological) matrices using regression and/or pattern recognition techniques. *Hansch Analysis - Hansch analysis is the investigation of the quantitative relationship between the

biological activity In pharmacology, biological activity or pharmacological activity describes the beneficial or adverse effects of a drug on living matter. When a drug is a complex chemical mixture, this activity is exerted by the substance's active ingredient or ...

of a series of compounds and their physicochemical substituent or global parameters representing hydrophobic, electronic, steric and other effects using multiple regression correlation methodology. *Hansch-Fujita

\pi

constant - The Hansch-Fujita

\pi

constant describes the contribution of a substituent to the lipophilicity of a compound. Research Interests:

; Interaction of organic chemicals with living organisms, Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR). *Fragment based regression analysis for

(Hansch-analysis)

Death

He died of pneumonia on May 8, 2011 in

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. It is in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 census it had a popul ...

at 92.

Notes

His research group at

worked on QSAR studies and in building and expanding the database of chemical and physical data as C-QSAR and Bioloom. His postgraduate associates were Rajni Garg, Cynthia R. D. Selassie, Suresh Babu Mekapati, and Alka Kurup. The Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design carried four obituaries (as found in a Pubmed personal subject ssearch). Among his students at Pomona was

Jennifer Doudna Jennifer Anne Doudna (; born February 19, 1964) is an American biochemist who has done pioneering work in CRISPR gene editing, and made other fundamental contributions in biochemistry and genetics. Doudna was one of the first women to share a ...

, co-recipient of the 2020

Nobel Prize in Chemistry ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then "M ...

. Doudna has credited Hansch as an influence.

Bibliography

A preliminary search in WorldCat and in PubMed, two among many relevant bibliographic and citation indexes, shows the following: * Books: WorldCat shows "53 works in 204 publications in 4 languages and 2,004 library holdings" for Hansch as "author, editor, other". The top item in the list is "Exploring QSAR" by Corwin Hansch, Albert Leo and David Hoekman, an ACS professional reference book in 28 editions published between 1995 and 2014. * Journal articles: 281 Pubmed records * Reviews: authored 33 reviews as indexed in Pubmed * Title word search: 56 Pubmed records The Pomona College Archives holds reprints of Hansch’s articles published between 1962 and 2009 in addition to other materials.

References

External links

Example for Hansch equation and Hansch-Fujita

\pi

constant
* ttp://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8rv0s2c/entire_text/ Corwin Hansch Collection, Pomona College Archives. Pomona College. Claremont, CA 91711br>Guide to the Corwin Hansch CollectionCorwin Hansch Award at the Hansch-Fujita Foundation, 2000-
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansch, Corwin American pharmacologists Manhattan Project people 2011 deaths 1918 births People from Ward County, North Dakota Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences alumni University of Illinois alumni Pomona College faculty Cheminformatics New York University alumni