Interview Professor Peter R. Schreiner

Combining experiments and computations, Schreiner s research has always exhibited a symbiotic character. His research in carbenes exemplifies this interplay. Despite a great deal of previous work on carbenes, Schreiner discovered that the chalcogene carbenes were not well known. Knowing that the simplest example, hydroxymethylene, had not been made or characterized, he was sure that its preparation would be difficult. How does nature make carbenes he asked. The pyruvate cycle—CO2 extrusion from alpha-ketocarboxylic acids. She figured it all out So, the group tried oxalic acid and Bam Extrusion gave us dihydroxycarbene smoothly The surprise was it was so simple. But it was not all to be so simple. 

Reactive Intermediate Chemistry, Wiley-Interscience Hoboken, NJ, 2004. 

Rowland, C. The electronic properties of diradicals, Angew. Chem. bit. Ed. Engl 1972, JJ, 92-111. 

Radicals in Organic Synthesis Formation of Carbon-Carbon Bonds, Pag-amon Press Oxford, 1986. 

Parkinson, C. J. Mayer, P. M. Radom, L. Bond dissociation energies and radical stabilization energies associated with substituted methyl radicals, J. Phys. Chem. A 2001, 105, 6750-6756. 

---