François N. Diederich: Pioneer of carbon allotropes and molecular recognition

Abstract

Francois Nico Diederich, an iconic organic chemist who innovated and created in the fields of molecular recognition and host–guest chemistry, new allotropes of carbon and novel carbon-rich molecules, and drug activity and design, passed away on September 23, 2020 in Zurich, Switzerland at the age of 68, after battling an aggressive cancer. Francois N. Diederich. Reproduced with permission from ref. 1. Francois Diederich in the Chemistry Library at UCLA, 1980. Image credit: Marion C. Peters (Librarian Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles, CA). Francois and Georgine Diederich at UCLA in 2019. Image credit: Penny Jennings (University of California, Los Angeles, CA). A proud native of Luxembourg, Diederich became known the world over both for his chemical discoveries and for his warm, lively, and interactive personality. Educated first in Luxembourg and then earning his diploma and doctorate at the University of Heidelberg, Germany with Heinz Staab, Diederich gained early fame for the first synthesis in 1978 of a hydrocarbon that Staab had named “Kekulene” to honor the discoverer of the structure of benzene. Kekulene, containing 12 fused benzene rings in a planar circular structure, was resynthesized and studied by single-molecule imaging in 2019, and found to have the structural details predicted by Diederich and Staab. By conquering the synthesis of this molecule, Diederich became enamored of carbon-rich molecules that he studied throughout his career. Diederich was a postdoctoral fellow with Orville L. Chapman at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 1979 to 1981, and had fruitful interactions with Donald Cram, UCLA professor, who was on his way to the Nobel Prize in 1987 for host–guest chemistry. This field was another one in which Diederich became a world leader. Both of us (K.N.H. and J.F.S.) had similarly memorable educational interactions with Cram (and with Diederich!) at various times in … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: houk{at}chem.ucla.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1