K-HHMI Visiting Fellows

Visiting Experts

Dr. Stephen Wilson - Volume I: Combinatorial Chemistry
New York University

Professor Wilson has a rich heritage in fundamental organic chemistry. His scientific lineage began at Rice University where he worked with Professor Richard B. Turner. Dr. Turner was a student of Dr. Louis Fieser at Harvard and carried out the first syntheses of cortisone during a postdoc in the 1940’s with Dr. E.C. Kendall at the Mayo Clinic. Kendall discovered that cortisone was a remarkable cure for rheumatoid arthritis and was awarded the Nobel Prize for its discovery in 1951. Dr. Turner then became a professor at Rice University and, besides synthesis, pioneered the use of olefin heats of hydrogenation to define energy differences between molecules. His classic work on double bond stability's provided much of today’s basic structural understanding in a period that predated molecular mechanics.

Dr. Wilson’s thesis work at Rice focused on sesquiterpene synthesis (total synthesis of marasmic acid), but he also prepared many strained olefins and novel unnatural molecules for Dr. Turner’s hydrogenation experiments. This interest in the correlation of structure with reactivity, planted seeds for Wilson’s future work in computer modeling. Following his studies at Rice, Wilson was awarded an NIH postdoctoral fellowship to work with Professor Robert E. Ireland at Caltech where Dr. Wilson was responsible for a total synthesis of the pentacyclic triterpene b-amyrin.

Dr. Wilson then moved to the Midwest in 1974 as professor of chemistry at Indiana University and established a large synthetic group. The theme of his work was synthesis and synthetic methods-- and resulted in many discoveries on such topics as terpene and alkaloid synthesis, pheromones, and anion-assisted sigmatropic rearrangements.

In 1980 Wilson moved his group to NYU and expanded his research to the intramolecular Diels-Alder reaction and new approach to the total synthesis vitamin D. He also was involved in the design and synthesis of novel suicide enzyme inhibitors. His key discovery in this area was an organosilicon-based enzyme inhibitor that trimethylsilylates the active site of P-450scc.

In the mid 1980’s Professor Wilson began research in computer modeling, and pioneered a new method of conformational analysis called simulated annealing. His applications of the Monte Carlo technique to conformational studies has become one of the standards in computer modeling today. Dr. Wilson wrote a comprehensive review of this simulated annealing method in the book Protein Folding. S. M. Legrand and K. M. Mertz, eds, Birkenhauser, Boston, 1994.

In 1990 Dr. Wilson obtained one of the first commercial electrospray mass spectrometers. Electrospray mass spectrometry (ES-MS) is a technique for solution-phase MS and its application to organic chemistry was first reported by the Wilson group. The work revealed the power of ES-MS for the study of organic reactions in solution and was published in a series of papers from 1990-1993. His invited comprehensive review of organic ES-MS appeared in 1993 (Journal of the American Association of Mass Spectrometry, 1993, 596-603).

Around 1990, the first fullerene-C60 first became commercially available and Dr. Wilson began investigating its properties. Initial experiments with ES-MS of fullerene reactions lead to the discovery of many new C60 reactions and launched this phase of work in the Wilson lab. In 1993 Professors Wilson and Schuster began the collaboration that has become the NYU Fullerene Group. Several joint grants have propelled this team and their enthusiastic group students to their current position as one of the world’s premier sites for fullerene chemistry. Wilson and Schuster have also been jointly organizing the ECS Fullerene Division section on “Organic Functionalization” for the last few years. Currently, Dr. Wilson is organizing the “Biochemical/Pharmaceutical” section of this annual conference. The next meeting will be held in San Diego May 3-8, 1998 [http://www.electrochem.org/meetings/193].

Key advances in fullerene chemistry from the NYU Fullerene Group include electrospray MS tagging methods; the first resolution of a fullerene compound; development of a sector rule for absolute configuration; the design of novel fullerene-based anti-HIV drugs; new thermal and photochemical reactions; and helium NMR.

Recent non-fullerene work in the Wilson group has focused on solid-phase synthesis and combinatorial chemistry [see Wilson home page-- http://www.nyu.edu]. The first papers on solid-phase synthesis from the Wilson group just appeared [see Tetrahedron Lett, 1997, 402-406]. In addition, Professor Wilson edited the first comprehensive book on combinatorial chemistry, (Combinatorial Chemistry : Synthesis and Application, Wilson and Czarnik, John Wiley and Sons ,1997) [http://catalog.wiley.com]. Dr. Wilson’s group has also constructed a comprehensive web-based database on solid-phase organic synthesis (http://www.irori.com). Professor Wilson is now working on a comprehensive review of solid-phase organic synthesis for Organic Reactions scheduled for publication in 1999.

Dr. Wilson was a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1985 and a visiting professor at Rockefeller University in 1987. He has been reviewer and/or study section member for numerous granting agencies including the NIH, NSF, USDA, PRF and the American Cancer Society. He is also a referee for papers submitted to JACS, JOC, TL, JCS Chem Comm, J Comp Chem, JASMS, Org Mass Spec, and Fullerene Science as well as other journals. Besides more than 150 papers and patents, he has also edited many books and book chapters.

He has been a member in the Chemical Society (London), the American Chemical Society, the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Association for Vision Research, the Materials Research Society, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, and the Electrochemical Society.

Professor Wilson’s family includes his wife Susan and their two children, Sonia and Paul. When not in the lab, he enjoys sailing with his family in the summer and skiing in the winter. Dr. Wilson also plays the cello and is an amateur carpenter.