Personal information
Biography
Hans-Ulrich Reissig studied chemistry at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München from 1970-1975 and after doing research in diazoalkane cycloadditions under the guidance of Prof. Rolf Huisgen received his doctoral degree in 1978. During a postdoctoral stint with Prof. Edward Piers at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, he performed studies on divinylcyclopropane-cycloheptadiene rearrangements. He then started his independent career at the University in Würzburg under the mentorship of Prof. Siegfried Hünig and finished his habilitation in 1984 with donor-acceptor cyclopropanes as research topic. He took academic positions at the universities in Darmstadt and Dresden, and from 1999-2015 at the Freie Universität Berlin.
His research interests are in the field of organic synthesis, in particular in the development of new synthetic methods and their application to synthesis of natural products and heterocycles. In 1980, he introduced the term donor-acceptor cyclopropanes and studied many reactions of this type of small ring compounds during the following ten years. His group also systematically investigated the hetero Diels-Alder reactions of nitroso alkenes and the synthetic potential of the resulting 1,2-oxazine derivative. His contributions to samarium diiodide-promoted cyclization reactions were highlighted by one of the shortest and most efficient approaches to the legendary alkaloid strychnine. His group also systematically studied the synthetic potential of lithiated alkoxyallenes for the synthesis of heterocycles and natural products.
So far he published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles and gave almost 300 invited lectures. For many years, he also served as member of the editorial board of “Liebigs Annalen der Chemie” and of “European Journal of Organic Chemistry” and of various committees of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
Since 2012 he is a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and in 2014 he was honored with the Liebig Memorial Medal of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker. In 2017 he received the Honorary Membership of the Polish Chemical Society.