- Raymond Lemieux
Raymond Urgel Lemieux CC (
June 16 ,1920 –July 22 ,2000 ) was a Canadianbiochemist , who pioneered a number of discoveries in the field ofchemistry , his first and most famous being thesynthesis ofsucrose .Biography
"Dr. Raymond U. Lemieux" was born on June 16, 1920 in
Lac La Biche, Alberta , Canada. His family moved toEdmonton, Alberta in 1926. He studied chemistry at theUniversity of Alberta and received a BSc with Honours in Chemistry in 1943. He went on to study atMcGill University , where he received his PhD inOrganic Chemistry in 1946. He won a post-doctoralscholarship atOhio State University , whereBristol Laboratories Inc. sponsored his research on the structure ofstreptomycin . He met his future wife, a doctoral student, at Ohio State and they were married in 1948.In following years, he returned to Canada where he spent two years as an
assistant professor at theUniversity of Saskatchewan . Next he served as Senior Research Officer at the National Research Council'sPrairie Regional Laboratory in Saskatoon. In 1953 he and a fellow researcher, George Huber, were the first scientists to successfully synthesize sucrose. In 1954, he accepted the position of Dean in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences at theUniversity of Ottawa , where he established their Department of Chemistry. In 1961 he returned to the University of Alberta as a professor in the Chemistry Department and to serve as the Chairman of the Organic Chemistry Division. He developed a method to make synthetic versions ofoligosaccharides , which led to improved treatments forleukemia andhemophilia and the development of newantibiotics ,blood reagents , and organ anti-rejection drugs.While at the University of Alberta, he established a number of biochemical companies, including R&L Molecular Research Ltd. in 1962, Raylo Chemicals Ltd.in 1966 (which purchased R&L) and Chembiomed in 1977 (which has since been taken over by Synsorb Biotech of
Calgary, Alberta .Dr. Raymond Lemieux died of
cancer on July 22, 2000.In 1999, the University of Alberta Faculty of Science and
Strathcona County established the Strathcona Country/R.U. Lemieux Chair in Carbohydrate Chemistry. In 2001, the University of Alberta renamed the building(s) housing the Department of Chemistry the Gunning/Lemieux Chemistry Centre.Awards
Dr. R.U. Lemieux received numerous awards and honours for his work in chemistry, many of them posthumous:
* Induction into the Royal Society of Canada (1954)
* C.S. Hudson Award of the American Chemical Society (1966
* Became the first western Canadian to be elected a fellow of the Royal Society (England) (1967)
* Appointed Officer of theOrder of Canada (1968)
* Hawarth Award and Medal (1983)
* The Tishler Award, Harvard University (1983)
* Gairdner Foundation International Award (1985)
* Made Honorary Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Stockholm (1988)
* Induction into theAlberta Order of Excellence (1990)
* King Faisal International Award for Science (first Canadian) (1990)
*NSERC Gold Medal in Science (1991)
* Albert Einstein World Award in Science (1992)
* Made Companion of theOrder of Canada (1994)
*Wolf Prize in Chemistry (1999)References
* [http://www.lieutenantgovernor.ab.ca/aoe/lemieux.cfm The Alberta Order of Excellence Member Profile]
* [http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=193 Science.ca Profile]
* [http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/expressnews/articles/news.cfm?p_ID=653&s=a Remembering Dr. Lemieux (article)]
* [http://collections.ic.gc.ca/abinvents/inventors/raymondlemieux_biography.htm Alberta Inventors and Inventions]
* [http://www.gg.ca/honours/search-recherche/honours-desc.asp?lang=e&TypeID=orc&id=3291 Order of Canada: Raymond U. Lemieux]Category:Canadian chemists
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