From organic chemistry to chemical biology via macromolecules with Hermann Staudinger

Abstract

Hermann Staudinger was born in Worms, Germany on March 23, 1881 and studied chemistry at University of Halle, Technical University, Darmstadt and Ludwig Maximillian University, Munich. In 1903 when he was only 22 years old, he obtained his PhD in Chemistry with Daniel Vorlaender in Halle. He started his habilitation with J. Thiele at the University of Strasbourg where in 1905, at age 25 he reported the discovery of ketenes. In 1907 at age 26 he discovered the [2 + 2] cycloaddition of ketenes with imines. This reaction remains even today the method of choice for the synthesis of β-lactams the main building block of antibiotics. This reaction is known as the Staudinger synthesis. In 1907 he obtained his habilitation in Strasbourg and moved as a junior faculty to the Technical University in Karslruhe. In Karslruhe he became for the first time interested in polymers. In 1912 he moved as professor of organic chemistry at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) where in 1919 he discovered the reduction of azides with triphenylphosphine, known as the Staudinger reaction. In 1920, at age 39 and at the pick of his professional career as an organic chemist he published a paper claiming that natural and synthetic polymers are covalently linked macromolecules. He had no support for this concept. In 1953 he received Nobel Prize in chemistry “for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry.” As seen even from Nobel lecture, his ultimate dream was to bridge between synthetic macromolecules and biology. His dream came through in the year 2000 when Bertozzi, Raines and Kiessling discovered Staudinger ligation, a bioorthogonal reaction that allows chemistry in living systems. His dream did not come through by bridging between synthetic macromolecules and biology but by transforming Staudinger reaction into Staudinger ligation.