 |
|
Department of Marine Sciences
|
|
EDUCATION:
Chemical Engineer, Ph. D. (1959) and Dr. Habil. (1974) in
Organic Chemistry, Polytechnic University, Bucharest, Romania;
Dipl. Radiochemist (1968) Bucharest University and Institute of Atomic Physics,
Bucharest, Romania
RESEARCH EMPHASIS
Experimental organic and bio-organic areas: (1) Heterocyclic compounds (I discovered new syntheses of pyrylium salts by olefin diacylation, and wrote the first book and several book chapters on pyrylium salts; I co-authored a new synthesis of oxazoles and thiazoles); several patents were filed for pharmaceuticals prepared starting from pyrylium salts, and in Texas two USA patents: (i) cationic lipids for gene transfer and (ii) ionic liquids as non-volatile solvents; (2) Stable nitrogen free radicals (I prepared the first aminyls stabilized by push-pull electronic effects, and prepared the first N-nitroso-nitroxides); (3) Nitric oxide donors (in cooperation with colleagues from the Texas A & M University and the University of Texas Medical Branch, I developed new NO donors, solutions of NO in fluorocarbon emulsions, and NO-releasing gels; these are the topics of three USA patents); we formed in Galveston a small company (NIOXX) based on these patents; (4) Catalytic isomerizations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (I coined the term automerization, and demonstrated the catalytic automerization of phenanthrene labeled with carbon-13 under the influence of aluminum chloride); (5) Homogeneous catalysis under acid conditions (I investigated reactions with synthetic utility catalyzed by Lewis and Brønsted acids; I published two chapters in Olah’s monograph on Friedel-Crafts and Related Reactions); (6) Isotopically labeled compounds (I devised new syntheses of labeling organic molecules with H and C isotopes).
Theoretical chemistry areas and drug design: (7) Chemical applications of graph theory (I edited the first book on this topic, allowing enumerations of chemical entities and pathways, e.g. by the first reaction graphs that I described); (8) Valence isomers of annulenes and their derivatives (for the first time I published the procedure allowing the exhaustive enumeration of annulene valence isomers, and published the first 3-volume monograph on these valence isomers); (9) Topological indices (I introduced many new topological indices for QSAR studies; one of these indices (the average distance-sum connectivity, denoted by J ) is known as the Balaban index, and is used successfully in drug design; (10) Molecular modeling and drug design (via QSAR and QSPR studies using topological and other invariants); (11) Carbon nets (I published in 1968 the first paper on possible alternative carbon nets, different from diamond or graphite, and continued more recently these studies in joint papers with R. Hoffmann, or with colleagues from the Texas A & M University at Galveston); (12) Theoretical invariants for fullerenes (I published studies on graph-theoretical characteristics that determine uniquely the structure of fullerene cages, and predicted the existence of graphitic cones before they were observed); (13) Theoretical studies of carbon nanotubes (I published studies about nanotubes with heteroatoms at their ends, thus avoiding dangling bonds; such systems were prepared experimentally in 1999).
TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
Undergraduate courses in Organic Chemistry and Fundamentals of Chemistry
LINKS:
Vitae
[Home] [Facilities]
[People] [Research]
[Publications] [Presentations]
[Services] [Graduate
Study] [links]
[Pictures]
Publications