Gernot Boche, Professor Emeritus University of Marburg, Germany, passed away last Thursday, 10th March. A well respected chemist, he will be remembered for his work on lithium compounds, their structures and reactions. He applied quantum chemical calculations to these species, and determined the crystal structures of many lithium containing complexes, especially those with carbene-like functionality. He also investigated mutagenic and carcinogenic aromatic amines and nitro compounds, most importantly how they transform into harmless species through small structural variations.
Boche was born in 1938 in Stuttgart, Bad Cannstatt, Germany. He studied chemistry in Stuttgart and Vienna, Austria. His doctoral and postdoctoral work were performed at the Institute of Organic Chemistry, University of Munich, Germany, where he worked until 1979 as a lecturer and professor. He became a full professor of Organic Chemistry at the Philipps-Universität Marburg in 1979, where he remained until his retirement in 2001. He held visiting professorships in Russia, Japan, the United States and Israel. Boche published over 200 articles between 1965 and 2005, and was awarded the GDCh Arfvedson Schlenk Prize in 2001 for outstanding achievements in the field of lithium chemistry.
Some papers by G. Boche:
- Stereoisomerisierung arylsubstituierter Cyclopropane via Trimethylen-Radikalanionen,
Gernot Boche, Helmut Wintermayr,
Angew. Chem. 1981, 93 (10), 923–924.
DOI: 10.1002/ange.19810931032 - 3.0.CO;2-F” target=”_blank”>10.1002/(SICI)1521-3765(19980515)4:5<814::AID-CHEM814>3.0.CO;2-F
- Direct Insight into the Ion Pair Equilibria of Lithium Organocuprates by 1H,6Li HOESY Experiments,
Ruth M. Gschwind, Pattuparambil R. Rajamohanan, Michael John, Gernot Boche,
Organometallics 2000, 19, 2868–2873.
DOI: 10.1021/om000068n
