Professor Alfred Hassner, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel, has passed away on March 27, 2024.

Alfred Hassner made significant contributions to synthetic methodology, small ring synthesis, and heterocyclic chemistry, particularly in stereoselectively introducing nitrogen functionalities and synthesizing steroid heterocycles. He was anong the first to use NMR half-widths for stereochemical structure assignment and introduce concepts like regiochemistry and regioselectivity.

His research group explored various areas including regioselective additions, stereochemistry of azides, catalyst development, regiochemistry of 3+2 cycloadditions and 2+2 ketene-olefin cycloadditions, reactions of nitrogen-containing compounds, steroids, organosilanes, and medicinal chemistry. They also pioneered methodologies for synthesizing small and large ring heterocycles, such as aziridines, azirines, and azepines, and recently investigated TiCl-catalyzed reactions.

 

Alfred Hassner was born in 1930 in Czernowitz, Romania (now part of Ukraine). Surviving the Holocaust, he enrolled directly at the Technical University of Vienna, Austria, from 1949-1951 and received his B.Sc. from the University of Nebraska, USA, in 1952. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska, Mead, NE, USA, in 1956 under the supervision of Norman Cromwell, and then was a postdoctoral fellow with Louis Fieser at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. He joined the faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA, in 1957 and became a full professor in 1966. In 1975 he moved to SUNY at Binghamton, Vestal, NY, USA, and in 1983 he joined Bar-Ilan University, where he taught chemistry until 2020.

Among many other honors, Alfred Hassner received the von Humboldt Award, the Fulbright Senior Award, the Lady Davis Foundation Award, the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Award, the U.S. National Research Council Award, the A.W. Killam Award, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Alfred Hassner served as President of the Israel Chemical Society (ICS) from 1991-1994, received the ICS Prize of Excellence in 2007, and was made an Honorary Member of the ICS in 2016 for his many years of scientific leadership in synthetic organic chemistry and his significant contributions to higher education in Israel. He has held visiting professorships and appointments at many universities worldwide, and has also served as a consultant to many companies.

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Selected Publications

• Eliezer Falb, Konstantin Ulanenko, Andrey Tor, Ronen Gottesfeld, Michal Weitman, Michal Afri, Hugo Gottlieb, Alfred Hassner, A highly efficient Suzuki–Miyaura methylation of pyridines leading to the drug pirfenidone and its CD3 version (SD-560), Green Chemistry 2017. https://doi.org/10.1039/c7gc01740e
• Alfred Hassner, Chennakesava Reddy Bandi, High-Yielding and Rapid Carbon–Carbon Bond Formation from Alcohols: Allylation by Means of TiCl₄, Synlett 2013. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0033-1338746
• Alfred Hassner, Synthesis of Heterocycles via Cycloadditions II. Topics in Heterocyclic Chemistry, Synthesis of Heterocycles via Cycloadditions, Springer, Heidelberg, Germany, 2008. ISBN 978-3-540-78373-2
• Anatoly M. Belostotskii, Amnon Albeck, Alfred Hassner, Asymmetric Induction by a Remote Chiral Substituent – Computationally Determined Stereodifferentiation in Michael Additions of α-Lithiated Allyl Sulfones, Eur. J. Org. Chem. 2007. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejoc.200700245
• Alfred Hassner, Guy Patchornik, Tarun K. Pradhan, R. Kumareswaran, Intermolecular Electrophilic O-Amination of Alcohols, J. Org. Chem. 2007, 72(2), 658–661. https://doi.org/10.1021/jo061900m
• Alfred Hassner, Diana Yagudayeva, Tarun K. Pradhana, Abraham Nudelmana, Boaz Amit, Light-Sensitive Protecting Groups for Amines and Alcohols: The Photosolvolysis of N-Substituted 7-Nitroindolines, Synlett 2007. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-2007-985580
• Alfred Hassner, Tarun K. Pradhan, Formation of spiro ketolactones versus alkoxy radical fragmentation-promoted three-atom ring enlarged lactones from cyclic ketones, Tetrahedron Letters 2006, 47(31), 5511–5513. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tetlet.2006.05.151
• Anatoly M. Belostotskii, Michael Shokhen, Hugo E. Gottlieb, Alfred Hassner, Conformational Preferences for 3-Piperideines: An Ab Initio and Molecular Mechanics Study, Chem. Eur. J. 2001. https://doi.org/10.1002/1521-3765(20011105)7:21<4715::AID-CHEM4715>3.0.CO;2-L
• Alfred Hassner, Advances in Asymmetric Synthesis, Volume 3. Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1999. ISBN 978-0-7623-0106-5.
• Alfred Hassner, Meir Stern, Synthesis of Alkyl Azides with a Polymeric Reagent, Angew. Chem.Int. Ed. 1986. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.198604781
• Alfred Hassner, Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds: Small Ring Heterocycles, Part 3: Oxiranes, Arene Oxides, Oxaziridines, Dioxetanes, Thietanes, Thietes, Thiazetes, and Others, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hobiken, NJ, USA, 1985. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470187203
• Alfred Hassner, Small Ring Heterocycles, Volume 42, Part 3 (Chemistry of Heterocyclic Compounds: A Monographs), John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ, USA, 1985.
• Gerrit L’abbé, Alfred Hassner, New Methods for the Synthesis of Vinyl Azides, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1971. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.197100981