George H. Büchi Memorial Lecture - Oregon State University

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The George H. Büchi Memorial Lecture

Chemistry Department

Oregon State University

Corvallis, OR

Professor George Büchi was born in Baden, Switzerland, on August 1, 1921, and attended the ETH Zürich where he received a Diploma in Chemical Engineering in 1945. He was awarded the D.Sc. in Organic Chemistry from ETH in 1947 where he carried out research in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Leopold Ruzicka. George Büchi then came to the U.S. and spent three years at the University of Chicago as a Firestone Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professor M.S. Kharasch. In 1951, he joined the faculty of MIT as an Assistant Professor. George Büchi was named the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry at MIT in 1971, a position he held until his retirement in 1991.

In his forty years at MIT, George Büchi trained 70 Ph.D. students and over 120 postdoctoral associates and visiting scientists, many of whom subsequently rose to leadership positions in academia and industry in the United States and abroad. Three of Buchi's Ph.D. students (James D. White, David A. Horne and Steven Gould) have held faculty positions at Oregon State University - making his impact on this department's success and direction significant. It is for this reason that the George H. Büchi Memorial Lecture was started at OSU in 2004. The research carried out by the Büchi group spanned several fields of organic chemistry and included the elucidation of the structure of natural products, the invention and discovery of new methods for organic synthesis, and the total synthesis of complex naturally occurring substances.

George Büchi's research was reported in over 200 publications and in lectures all over the world. He was a longtime consultant for both Firmenich SA in Geneva and the Hoffmann-La Roche pharmaceutical company in New Jersey, and he held over 30 US patents. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences at the relatively young age of 44, and his contributions to chemistry were recognized with numerous award including the American Chemical Society's Fritzche Award in 1958 and the Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry in 1973. Büchi received Honorary Doctorates from the University of Heidelberg in 1983 and from ETH in 1987. In 1986, the Government of Japan honored him with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays.

George Büchi was an avid hiker, hunter, skier, and fisherman, and he and his wife, Anne, enjoyed traveling all over the world to pursue these activities. It was during a hike on one of his favorite trails in Switzerland that he suffered a fatal heart attack.

In the words of his 1900 MIT Killian Faculty Achievement Award citation "George Herman Büchi, MIT faculty member for nearly 40 years, has set an unprecedented standard in organic chemistry. His contributions in research and education have added to the quality of life globally, and his colleagues and students have derived direct benefit from his wisdom, dedication to excellence, and friendship."

Past Büchi Memorial Lecturers

2004 Barry M. Trost (Stanford University)
2005 Gilbert Stork (Columbia University)
2006 Amos B. Smith, III (University of Pennsylvania)
2007 Albert Eschenmoser (Eidgenössische Tecnische Hochschule)
2008 Steven M. Weinreb (Penn State University)
2009 Philip J. Koceinski (Leeds University)

Professor George H. Büchi
(1921-1998)

2007 Büchi Memorial Lecturer Professor Albert Eschmosher discussing the search for primordial genetic material.

2006 Büchi Memorial Lecturer Professor Amos B. Smith, III (right) receiving an honorary plaque from Professor James D. White.

2005 Büchi Memorial Lecturer Professor Gilbert Stork giving his lecture on the synthesis of resperine.

2004 Büchi Memorial Lecturer Professor Barry M. Trost presenting his seminar on new synthetic strategies towards bioactive targets.