Vocation : Science : Chemistry

Joseph_Achille_Le_Bel

Joseph Achille Le Bel (21 January 1847 in Pechelbronn – 6 August 1930, in Paris, France) was a French chemist. He is best known for his work in stereochemistry. Le Bel was educated at the École Polytechnique in Paris. In 1874 he announced his theory outlining the relationship between molecular structure and optical activity. This discovery laid the foundation of the science of stereochemistry, which deals with the spatial arrangement of atoms in molecules. This hypothesis was put forward in the same year by the Dutch physical chemist Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and is currently known as Le Bel–van't Hoff rule. Le Bel wrote Cosmologie Rationelle (Rational Cosmology) in 1929.

Henri_B._Kagan

Henri Boris Kagan (born 15 December 1930) is currently an emeritus professor at the Université Paris-Sud in France. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of asymmetric catalysis. His discoveries have had far-reaching impacts on the pharmaceutical industry.He graduated from the Sorbonne and École nationale supérieure de chimie de Paris and carried out his PhD under J. Jacques at the Collège de France. Subsequently, he was a research associate with A. Horeau. He then moved to Université Paris-Sud, Orsay where he is emeritus professor. A landmark in his research was the development of C2-symmetric ligands, e.g., DIOP for asymmetric catalysis. This discovery led to the discovery of many related ligands that support catalysts used in a variety of practical applications.

Isadore_Perlman

Isadore Perlman (April 12, 1915 – August 3, 1991) was an American nuclear chemist noted for his research of Alpha particle decay.

The National Academy of Sciences called Perlman "a world leader on the systematics of alpha decay".
He was also recognized for his research of nuclear structure of the heavy elements.
He was also noted for his isolation of Curium,

as well as for fission of tantalum, bismuth, lead, thallium and platinum.

Perlman discovered uses of radioactive iodine and phosphorus for medical purposes.
He played a key role in Manhattan Project's plutonium production.

David_Harker

David Harker (October 19, 1906 – February 27, 1991) was an American medical researcher who according to The New York Times was "a pioneer in the use of X-rays to decipher the structure of critical substances in the life process of cells".He is also well known for Harker–Kasper inequalities (statistical relationships between the phases of structure factors), which he devised in collaboration with John S. Kasper.
Harker made seminal discoveries in the field of chemical crystallography.His lab solved the structure of the pancreatic enzyme ribonuclease A, the third protein structure ever solved by protein crystallography.
Harker was a member of the National Academy of Sciences,
director of the protein structure program at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, director of the Center for Crystallographic Research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the head of the crystallography division of General Electric. After retirement from Roswell Park in 1976, he joined the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI), then known as the Medical Foundation of Buffalo. He remained there until his death in 1991. His research interests while at HWI turned towards mathematical aspects of crystallography, including color space groups and infinite polyhedra.Harker was awarded the Gregori Aminoff Prize from the Swedish Academy in 1984.

Paul_Schutzenberger

Paul Schützenberger (23 December 1829 – 26 June 1897) was a French chemist. He was born in Strasbourg, where his father Georges Frédéric Schützenberger (1779–1859) was professor of law, and his uncle Charles Schützenberger (1809–1881) professor of chemical medicine.
He was intended for a medical career and graduated MD from the University of Strasbourg in 1855, but his interests laid in physical and chemical sciences. In 1853 he went to Paris as preparateur to JF Persoz (1805–1868), professor of chemistry at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. A year later he was entrusted with a course of chemical instruction at Mulhouse, and he remained in that town until 1865 as professor at the École Supérieure des Sciences.
He then returned to Paris as assistant to AJ Balard at the College de France, in 1876 he succeeded him in the chair of chemistry, and in 1882 he became directing professor at the municipal École de Physique et de Chimie. The two latter chairs he held together until his death, which happened at Mézy, Seine et Oise.
During the period he spent at Mulhouse, Schützenberger paid special attention to industrial chemistry, particularly in connection with colouring matters, but he also worked at general and biological chemistry which subsequently occupied the greater part of his time. He is known for a long series of researches on the constitution of alkaloids and of the albuminoid bodies, and for the preparation of several new series of platinum compounds and of hyposulphurous acid, H2S2O4.
Towards the end of his life he adopted the view that the elements have been formed by some process of condensation from one primordial substance of extremely small atomic weight, and he expressed the conviction that atomic weights within narrow limits are variable and modified according to the physical conditions in which a compound is formed.
His publications include:

Chimie appliquée à la physiologie et à la pathologie animale (1863);
Traité des matières colorantes (1867);
Les Fermentations (1875), which was translated into German, Italian and English;
Traité de chimie générale in seven volumes (1880–1894).

Jules_Pelouze

Théophile-Jules Pelouze (also known as Jules Pelouze, Théophile Pelouze, Theo Pelouze, or T. J. Pelouze, pronounced [pəluz]; 26 February 1807 – 31 May 1867) was a French chemist.