Raymond Lemieux grew up in the toughest part of Edmonton, Alberta. His father was a poor carpenter. His sister had a friend who was a graduate student in physics, which helped point Lemieux towards university. He went to the University of Alberta, and got his B.Sc. in Honours Chemistry. His teacher of Organic Chemistry was Reuben Sandin, who inspired Lemieux to pursue this subject. Later he got his Ph.D. from McGill University in Organic Chemistry. He took his postdoctoral studies with M. L. Wolfrom at Ohio State University, studying the degradation of streptomycin. Lemieux first achieved fame for the synthesis of sucrose. His second major contribution was pioneering work on configurational determination by NMR spectroscopy. He invented the olefin cleaving reagent with von Rudloff in 1955, as well as many other reagents in his career. He has also done important work with antibiotics, and started a couple of research companies, including Chembiomed Ltd. with the University of Alberta. In 1973, he began his famous work on the synthesis of human blood group determinants, and in 1975 published the first synthesis of the B human system trisaccharide. He later synthesized the carbohydrate sequences for six different blood group determinants. These achievements are important to the chemistry of immunology. Lemieux's current work deals with molecular recognition in biological processes. He has received numerous awards, including the Albert Einstein World Award in Science in 1992 and the Gairdner Foundation International Award in 1985.
Sources: personal communications; review of Lemieux's autobiography by Sir Derek Barton;
article by T.L. Nagabhushan for Canadian Pharmaceutical Manufacturer's Association.
© 1996 Softshell Small Systems Software Design Inc.
