Cornforth, Sir John

Cornforth, Sir John Warcup. 1992. "The Trouble with Synthesis." Australian Journal of Chemistry, 46 157-170. 

Cornforth, Sir John Warcup (b. 1917) Australian-born British chemist who assisted in the synthesis of penicillin and studied the biosynthesis of cholesterol and various steroids. His most important work, however, was in the detailed elucidation of the mode of action of enzymes, in particular the interaction between an enzyme and its substrate. For this work, he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry. 

Cornforth, Sir John Warcup (1917- ) Australian organic chemist. Cornforth is best known for his work on the problem of how the steroid cholesterol is synthesized in a cell. To investigate this problem he used the three isotopes of hydrogen - normal hydrogen (H-one), deuterium (H-two) and tritium (H-three) - and observed the different speeds of reactions found with these isotopes to infer how cholesterol was formed. He shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Vladimir PRELOG for this work. Cornforth has synthesized a number of other compounds including alkenes and oxazoles. 

Sir John Warcup Cornforth (1917-2004) was born in Sydney, Australia, and earned his Ph.D. from Oxford University in 1941 working with Sir Robert Robinson. He was on the staff of the National Institute for Medical Research in London from 1946 to 1962, at Shell Research Ltd. (1962-1975), and ultimately at Sussex University (1975-1982). Profoundly deaf since his teens, he worked in constant collaboration with his wife, Rita Harradence. He received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry. 

See the account in Williams, Robert Robinson, 7879 and [Lord] Alexander Todd and [Sir] John Cornforth, "Robert Robinson," in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 22 (1976) 465478. 

I am indebted to Martyn Berry and Professor Sir John Cornforth AC FRS for their many valuable comments on the draft manuscript and particularly to Professor Alwyn Davies FRS for his substantial help and encouragement throughout the preparation of the manuscript and diagrams. 

In 1992, Sir John Cornforth presented a lecture entitled The Trouble with Synthesis see Aust. J. Chem., 1993, 46, 157). Read the article and consider the points made in the context of this chapter, particularly the quoted comments by Corey and Deslongchamps early in the chapter. Also see Aldrichimica Acta, 1994, 27, 71. 

For example, as shown in Scheme 6.35, in the presence of the appropriate catalyst(s) it is known (Sir John Cornforth, et al., vide supra) that the triterpene squalene (2,6,20,15,19,23-hexa-methyltetracosa-2,( )6,(F)10,( )14,( )18,22-hexaene [C30H50]) undergoes oxidation (forming an epoxide) and then via a zipper-like cascade, with one double bond adding to the next, cycUzation and rearrangement with migration of hydride and methide (or their equivalent) follow to produce lanosterol. 

Chain and I then began a collaboration with Sir Robert Robinson and Dr. Wilson Baker, who were later joined by John Cornforth and others in the Dyson Perrins Laboratory. One of the first questions asked by Robinson was whether sulfur was present in the molecule, and we told him of the analytical report. However, after Dorothy Hodgkin had determined the molecular weight of crystalline penicillaminic acid, she pointed out that it would not be possible to write a structure for this compound if it contained only C, H, O, and N. The presence of sulfur... 

---