AWARDEE OF CHEMISTRY PRIZE

DAI LIXIN

Dai Lixin, an organic chemist, was born on November 13, 1924 in Beijing. He received his B.S.degree in 1947 from the Zhejiang University (Department of Chemistry). After spending five years in Shanghai Steal Co. He joined the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 1953 and up to now. Starting as a research associate, associate research professor and is currently a research professor. He is now serving as the chairman of the committee for Graduate Study, the advisor of the Academic Committee, member of the Academic Committee of the State Key Laboratory of Organometallic Chemistry and of the State Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry of that institute. He is also the adjunct professor of several universities and is also the chairman of  the Academic Committee of the State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Chemistry, Nankai University. He was elected  the academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1993.
In the early years, he was involved in the research of the chemistry of aureomycin, including isolation and partial synthesis. From 1960's, he worked in the field of orgaoboron chemistry and several national defence related projects. The research work was completely interrupted by the so called “Cultural Revolution”. Since 1984, he has been engaged again in research work and paid more attention on organic synthesis and organometallic chemistry. He noticed the importance of metal coordination in controlling of reaction selectivity. Hence, several synthetic reaction with excellent selectivity were realized.
Recently, he focused his interest in asymmetric synthesis, including the design, synthesis of novel chiral ligands , especially the chiral ferrocenyl ligands and application in asymmetric syntheses. He carried out intensive study about the role of planar chirality. Several novel ligands offered very good result in the asymmetric allylic substitution reaction and asymmetric intermolecular Heck reaction. He and Prof  Huang Liang were the principle investigators for a state key project of National Natural Science Foundation —— Chemical and Biological Studies on Chiral Drugs.
Prof. Dai is the author or coauthor of more than 130 research articles published in prestigeous chemistry journals. He coedited two books and also translated 5 books on stereochemistry. Fifteen graduate students obtained their Ph. D. Degree under the supervision of Prof. Dai and four of them are the winners of the Special Presidential Award of Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the National Science and Technology Congress Award in 1978 and the First Class Shanghai Prize of the Advancement of Science and Technology in 2001. He was the recipient of the Pen Yin-gang Prize for Outstanding Supervisors of graduate students of CAS in 2001 and 2002.