Vladimir Prelog
Vladimir Prelog ForMemRS[1] (23 July 1906 – 7 January 1998) was a Croatian-Swiss organic chemist who received the 1975 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions. Prelog was born and grew up in Sarajevo.[2] He lived and worked in Prague, Zagreb and Zürich during his lifetime.[3][4]
Vladimir Prelog
23 July 1906
7 January 1998 (aged 91)
Czech Technical University in Prague (Sc.D, 1929)
- Organic chemistry
- Biochemistry
- Conformational analysis
- Cahn-Ingold-Prelog priority rules
- Prelog strain
- Klyne-Prelog system
- Prelog's rule
- Prelog-Djerassi lactone
- Centenary Prize (1949)
- ForMemRS (1962)[1]
- Marcel Benoist Prize (1964)
- Davy Medal (1967)
- Paul Karrer Gold Medal (1974)
- Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1975)
- Chirality Medal (1992)
Awards and honours
Prelog was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1960[11] and the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1961.[12]
Prelog was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1962 for his contribution to the development of modern stereochemistry.[1]
Prelog received the 1975 Nobel Prize in Chemistry[13][14][15] for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reaction,[16] sharing it with the Australian/British research chemist John Cornforth.[3]: 571 He was elected to the American Philosophical Society the following year.[17]
In 1986, he became an honorary member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. Prelog was also a member of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.[18]
Personal life
In 1933, Prelog married Kamila Vitek.[3]: 578 The couple had a son Jan (born 1949).[10]
An intellectual with a wide cultural background, Prelog was one of the 109 Nobel Prize winners who signed the peace appeal for Croatia in 1991.
Vladimir Prelog died in Zürich, at the age of 91. An urn containing Prelog's ashes was ceremoniously interred at the Mirogoj cemetery in Zagreb on 27 September 2001. In 2008, a memorial to Prelog was unveiled in Prague.[19]