A lifetime journey into the world of chemistry

Abstract

The professional life of the author has been a fascinating journey through the magnificent landscapes of synthetic organic chemistry. A friendly editor invited him to share a few of these travel memories. This review is thus a (very) personal and (totally) prejudiced account of the author's research in organic chemistry. It describes the work of his associates and coworkers at UCLouvain in Belgium or at IECB in France. All schemes only deal with work which was done in both research groups. The names of the coworkers will appear in the references. The author apologizes to those coworkers whose work has not been cited but he had to sail within his pages' allocation. As will be seen, many areas of organic synthesis have been visited. The results of the research were put into perspective with the status of the field when the research was undertaken. Obviously several of these fields of research have dramatically expanded later on; credit could not be given here to these important developments. However, when available, some recent reviews will be cited to give a flavour of the most recent work. Thus, the reader should not expect to read a “classical” review of a topical subject. The purpose of this paper is merely the sharing of professional experiences of a modest but enthusiastic teacher and researcher.