American University

Perhaps one of the most exciting developments in the chemistry of quinoxalines and phenazines in recent years originates from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where Haddadin and Issidorides first made the observation that benzofuroxans undergo reaction with a variety of alkenic substrates to produce quinoxaline di-AT-oxides in a one-pot reaction which has subsequently become known as the Beirut reaction . Many new reactions tend to fall by the wayside by virtue of the fact that they are experimentally complex or require starting materials which are inaccessible however, in this instance the experimental conditions are straightforward and the starting benzofuroxans are conveniently prepared by hypochlorite oxidation of the corresponding o-nitroanilines or by pyrolysis of o-nitrophenyl azides. 

The simulation of molecular (or atomic) dynamics on a computer was invented by the physicist George Vineyard, working at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York State. This laboratory, whose biography has recently been published (Crease 1999), was set up soon after World War II by a group of American universities. 

In 1965, Haddadin and Issidorides, at the American University of Beirut, observed that combining 1 with morpholinocyclohexene 5 in methanol afforded quinoxaline-1,4-dioxide 6 in 48% yield." Shortly thereafter, the same authors reported that 1 also reacts with 1,3-dicarbonyl compound 7 in the presence of triethylamine to give the quinoxaline-1,4-dioxide 8 in 38% yield. This reaction has been referred to in the chemical literature as the Beirut reaction to acknowledge the city in which it was discovered. 

The American University, School of International Seivice (1997). . 

Education of Environmental Specialists and Generalists in American Universities... 

After the war, Carothers work spread to American universities and became the prototype for science-based industrial research. Polymer scientists, including Flory and Staudinger, won four Nobel Prizes. The prize is not awarded posthumously but, had Carothers lived, he might well have shared one of their prizes. 

He has held several adjunct professor appointments and was especially active at the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island the Department of Oceanography and Marine Biology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Department of Biology, American University, Washington, D.C. 

Odenkirchen, E.W. 1987. Hazards of Chlorpyrifos, an Qrganophosphorus Pesticide, to Natural Resources A Review. M.A. Thesis. The American University, Washington, D.C. 63 pp. 

Rosannah Taylor Department of Biology, American University, Washington, DC... 

Shahrokh Saba was born in Tehran, Iran, studied at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, where he obtained his B.S. in 1970. He continued his education at the University of East Anglia and received his Ph.D. in 1974 under the direction of Prof. A. R. Katritzky. During 1975-79, he taught as an assistant professor at Azad University in Tehran. He moved to the United States in 1980, and after postdoctoral fellowships in 1980 (Prof. R. Breslow, Columbia University), 1981 (Prof. W. C. Agosta, Rockefeller University), and 1982-83 (Prof. N. O. Smith, Fordham University), he assumed a teaching position at Kean College of New Jersey in 1984. He returned to Fordham University in 1986 and took up his present position, and is currently an associate professor of chemistry. His scientific interests include all aspects of heterocyclic chemistry, and new uses of simple ammonium salts in organic synthesis. 

Feldstein, R., Bunte Salt Polymers Synthesis. Reactivity and Properties. Ph.D. Dissertation, The American University, 1971. 

Organizational Structure and Support Base. Interdisciplinary efforts require cooperation beyond the usual unit boundaries. Mutual interests of diverse faculty must be brought into convergence. Perhaps more important, some administrative "home" must be found. No doubt a variety of alternatives, including unconventional ones, could prove suitable. For the past 20 years supradepartmental organizations have held a very important position in research. However, the traditional unit for teaching in the American university remains the department. 

Association of American Universities (2000). Task Force on Research Accountability Report on University Protection of Human Beings Who are the Subjects of Research. Washington, D.C., June 28, 2000. www.aau.edu/HumSUbRpt06.28.00pdf Biomarkers Definitions Working Group (2001). Biomarkers and surrogate endpoints Preferred definitions and conceptual frameworks. Clin. Pharmacol. Ther. 69 89-95. 

Beirut Bombing — On November 8, 1991, a 100-kilogram car bomb destroyed the administration building of the American University. The attack killed one person and wounded at least a dozen others. 

None of the big American universities at that time had a department for polymers. 

Only well after 1900, when geochemists discovered unanticipated industrial applications of their knowledge, did the field find a secure place in American universities. 

I do not wish to challenge the idea that the American university of the turn of the century was a flexible institution. Nor do I wish to reject the claim that it served as the major site of specialization. Nevertheless, recognition of the importance of the university as a locus of this phenomenon should not cause us to neglect other kinds of institutions in which new specialties coalesced. Nor should the current emphasis upon institutional forms and markets for specialized knowledge blind us to the fact that ideas too played a role — that scientists with ideas could and did develop new specialties despite the absence of institutions or social and economic needs well suited to the realization of their disciplinary aims. 

Veysey, Laurence R. "The Emergence of the American University" University of Chicago Press Chicago, 1975. 

Chloroacetophenone was among the many samples of possible war gases prepared by E. Emmet Reid and sent to the Bureau of Mines in 1917. Because there were no testing facilities for lachryma-tors until the central laboratory was completed, the value of this compound as a tear gas went unnoticed. It was January, 1918, before the results of the physiological tests were reported which showed chloroacetophenone to be superior to any other tear gas in use at the time (23). The Johns Hopkins University branch laboratory, in cooperation with a unit at American University then developed a method of synthesis. Although chloroacetophenone was not produced in quantity before the war ended, it became the standard tear gas used by civilian police after the war (38). 

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