Professor Gerhard Quinkert, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, has passed away on May 6, 2015.
He was a strong proponent of interdisciplinary research combining biology and chemistry. His research interests included light-induced reactions, stereoselective organic synthesis of biologically active compounds, conformational analysis as a bridge between chemical structure and biological function, and combinatorial synthesis.
Gerhard Quinkert was born in 1927 in Lüdenscheid/Westfalen, Germany. He studied chemistry at the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, where he received his Ph.D. under the supervision of H. H. Inhoffen in 1955. He stayed in Braunschweig, becoming Privatdozent in 1961, Associate Professor in 1963, and Full Professor in 1967. Professor Quinkert joined the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1970 as Professor in the Institute for Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology and remained there until his retirement in 1995.
He had appointments as guest professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, at the Weizmann Institute, Rehovoth, Israel, at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, and at Technion, Haifa, Israel.
Among other honors, Professor Quinkert received the Karl Innacker Grant from Hoechst AG, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 1961, the Emil Fischer Medal from the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, German Chemical Society) in 1984, and the Literature Prize of the Chemical Industry Fund (Fonds der Chemischen Industrie, FCI) in 1996. Quinkert was a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and of the Academia Europaea. From 1973 to 1981, he served as a member of the board of directors of the GDCh.
Selected Publications
- Stereoselective Ring Opening of Electronically Excited Cyclohexa-2,4-dienones: Cause and effect,
Gerhard Quinkert, Stefan Scherer, Dietmar Reichert, Hans-Peter Nestler, Helma Wennemers, Andreas Ebel, Klaus Urbahns, Klaus Wagner, Klaus-Peter Michaelis, Gerhard Wiech, Günter Prescher, Bernd Bronstert, Bernd-Jürgen Freitag, Ilka Wicke, Dietmar Lisch, Pavel Belik, Thorsten Crecelius, Dirk Hörstermann, Gottfried Zimmermann, Jan W. Bats, Gerd Dürner, Dieter Rehm,
Helv. Chim. Acta 1997, 80, 1683–1772.
DOI: 10.1002/hlca.19970800602 - Variation and Selection,
Gerhard Quinkert, Holger Bang, Dietmar Reichert,
Helv. Chim. Acta 1996, 79, 1260–1278.
DOI: 10.1002/hlca.19960790504 - Total Synthesis with a Chirogenic Opening Move Demonstrated on Steroids with Estrane or 18a-Homoestrane Skeleton,
Gerhard Quinkert, Michael Del Grosso, Astrid Döring, Wolfgang Döring, Ralf I. Schenkel, Markus Bauch, Gernot T. Dambacher, Jan W. Bats, Gottfried Zimmermann, Gerd Dürner,
Helv. Chim. Acta 1995, 78, 1345–1391.
DOI: 10.1002/hlca.19950780524 - Aspekte der Organischen Chemie: Struktur (in German),
Gerhard Quinkert, Ernst Egert, Christian Griesinger,
Helvetica Chimica Acta, Basel/VCH, Weinheim, 1995.
ISBN: 978-3-906390-11-6 - Stereoselective Synthesis of Enantiomerically Pure Natural Products — Estrone as Example,
Gerhard Quinkert, Herbert Stark,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1983, 22, 637–655.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.198306373 - Evidence of Two Configurational Isomers of Dienylketenes from 6-Methyl-6-phenyl-2,4-cyclohexadienone by Low Temperature Spectroscopy,
Gerhard Quinkert, Bernd Bronstert, Peter Michaelis, Uwe Krüger,
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. 1970, 9, 240–241.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.197002401
