Strecker. Adolf

Strecker, Adolf. "Ueber die kunstUche BUdung der Milchsaure." Annalen der Chemie 75 (1850) 27-45. 

The synthesis of alanine was described by Adolf Strecker of the University of Wurzburg (Germany) in a paper published in 1850... 

The following year he attended the new University of Strasbourg with his cousin Otto Fischer and became influenced by Adolf von Baeyer. Studying under von Baeyer, Fischer received his Ph.D. in 1874 for his work on fluoresceine and orcin-phthalein. In the same year he was appointed assistant instructor at Strasbourg University and discovered the first hydrazine base, phenylhydrazine, and demonstrated its relationship to hydrazobenzene and to a sulfonic acid described by Strecker and Romer. 

The first multicomponent reaction was the Strecker reaction reported in 1850 by Adolf Strecker [241aj. It is a three-component coupling between carbonyl derivatives, amines, and cyanide source, such as hydrogen cyanide, to provide a-aminonitriles which constitute potent starting materials to achieve important a-amino acids by simple hydrolysis. The mechanism of the Strecker reaction involves the initial formation of an imine from condensation of the amine component to the carbonyl component, after which addition of the cyanide component to this imine intermediate follows. Although the first enantioselective, metal-catalyzed Strecker... 

MBFTs make chemical processes more efficient by reducing the total number of steps and improve atom economy while maximizing structural complexity and functional diversity. In consequence, the amount of waste generated, money, the manpower needed, and the negative environmental impact are greatly reduced. One of the first examples of such a reaction proposed by a synthetic chemist goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century with the work of Adolf Strecker in 1850. He was able to synthesize a-amino cyanides, precursors of a-amino acids, by the one-pot concomitant creation of one C-C and one C-N bond from an aldehyde, ammonia, and hydrogen cyanide (Scheme 1.3) [6]. 

Professor Adolf Strecker (1822-1871), University of Wurzburg, Germany. 

The Strecker reaction is an efQdent method for the preparation of a-amino acids which was first reported by Adolf Strecker over 100 years ago [120]. Now, several methods for asymmetric cyanations catalyzed by metal-complexes or organocata-lysts have been developed [121-124],... 

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