Elias James Corey, a specialist in the synthesis of organic chemicals, developed many of the theories and methods that now define his field. Since his research career began in the 1950s, one of his goals has been to make the synthesis of chemicals more systematic, and he is best known for his logical approach to the creation of new substances, which he has named "retrosynthetic analysis ." Corey's achievements in research, which resulted in far-reaching benefits for medicine and human health, were recognized in 1990 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
Corey was born July 12, 1928, to Fatina (Hasham) and Elias Corey in Methuen, Massachusetts. His father died eighteen months later. Corey had been named William at birth, but after his father's death his mother renamed him in his memory. Corey had three siblings, a brother and two sisters, and they were all raised by their mother, with the help of her sister and brother-in-law. His aunt and uncle actually moved in with them, and Corey still credits his mother's sister with being an important influence on his life. Corey enjoyed football and baseball as a child; he was also a good student, graduating from high school in 1945 and entering the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the age of sixteen. He intended to study engineering but quickly developed an interest in chemistry. It was here that Corey began his research on organic synthesis, the manual formation of chemicals. He worked under John Sheehan on the organic synthesis of penicillin and received his Ph.D. in 1951.
After earning his doctorate, Corey accepted a position as instructor in chemistry at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He continued his research on organic synthesis; in 1954 he became an assistant professor, and in 1955 he was named full professor of chemistry. In 1957, Corey received a Guggenheim fellowship. He left Illinois on sabbatical, and during this time he did research that laid the foundation for the rest of his career. He spent a portion of his sabbatical working on chemical synthesis with Robert B. Woodward at Harvard. The rest of the time he devoted solely to research in Europe, examining the problems of synthesizing prostaglandins (hormone-like substances with many different effects, found in the tissue of the body).
During the time Corey was a Guggenheim fellow, chemical synthesis was widely considered an intuitive process and often called an "art form." In a 1990 article in Science, Corey recalled his field as he found it in the 1950s: "Chemists approached each problem in an ad hoc way. Synthesis was taught by the presentation of a series of illustrative--and generally unrelated--examples of actual synthesis." It was while working with Woodward that Corey began his effort to systematize this intuitive process. Success in organic synthesis was often personal and difficult for the individual scientist to explain in full; Corey wanted the methods, as well as the results, to be both reproducible and teachable.
In 1959, Corey was offered a professorship of chemistry at Harvard, which he accepted. In his new position, he continued to search for what he has called the "deep logic" of chemical synthesis. His central innovation was to reverse the usual order of procedure by adding a planning process that began with the desired result, instead of the initial chemicals. Corey planned the process backwards from the molecule he wanted to synthesize, creating a chart or "tree" that included many possible compounds and reactions. This was retrosynthetic analysis, a formal system which eliminated much of the guesswork, as well as making it easier to use chemicals that were readily available or easy to synthesize. The system also made it possible to use computers for chemical synthesis, and Corey has been a pioneer in this application of artificial intelligence.
The actual results of Corey's work in chemical synthesis have been almost as important as his methodological innovations. In 1968, Corey and his colleagues were able to synthesize five different prostaglandins, which are involved in regulating many functions in the body including blood pressure, blood coagulation, and reproduction. Before this time only a small quantity of these substances was available, as they had to be extracted from the testes of Icelandic sheep. With scientists able to synthetically produce prostaglandins, their applications in medicine have increased profoundly. Eventually Corey's work on prostaglandins led to the development of what is now commonly known as the Corey lactone aldehyde. From this, prostaglandins of all three familial types can be derived.
Another result of Corey's work was the 1988 synthesis of ginkgolide B, a chemical naturally extracted from the ginkgo tree. This chemical is used for the treatment of asthma and circulatory problems in the elderly, and has grown to a market of over 500 million dollars a year. Besides these accomplishments, Corey also has improved or started over fifty new reactions. This has broadened the application of organic synthesis by increasing the tools available to the scientist.
Corey was awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize not for any specific scientific achievement but for his career as a whole. In conferring the award, the Nobel Prize committee said of him: "No other chemist has developed such a comprehensive and varied assortment of methods, often showing the simplicity of genius, which have become commonplace in organic synthesis laboratories." Corey continues his association with Harvard as head of an organic synthesis laboratory which operates with the help of graduate students. The "Corey research family" has contributed to the training of over one hundred-fifty university professors and an even greater number of scientists working in industry.
Corey has received eleven honorary degrees including doctorates from the University of Chicago in 1968 and Oxford University in 1982. He has received more than three dozen other awards from universities and scientific societies, including a 1971 Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, the Linus Pauling Award in 1973, and in 1988 the Robert Robinson Medal from the Royal Society of Chemistry. Corey was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences from 1960 to 1968. He has been a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 1966. He has served on the editorial board of several scientific journals and contributed over seven hundred articles for publication. He is co-author of a 1989 book, The Logic of Chemical Synthesis.
Corey was married in September 1961 to Claire Higham. He and his wife have three children (two sons and a daughter), and they reside in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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