Leopold Horner

Life and work

Horner studied in the 1930s Chemistry, 1935, he was with a thesis on " knowledge of the Vomicins Degradation of Vomicidin; doctorate on Strychnos alkaloids XVIII " in Munich at the Nobel laureate Heinrich Otto Wieland. He habilitated there in 1942. Afterwards he worked at the Plastics Institute in Frankfurt am Main. In 1950 he became a professor in Frankfurt and went in 1953 to the University of Mainz.

Horner was one of the pioneers of asymmetric catalysis and a luminary in the field of organophosphorus compounds. He is the discoverer of the Horner -Wadsworth -Emmons reaction, react with aldehydes or ketones enolates of alkylphosphonic acid esters ( phosphonate carbanions ) to olefins.

Awards

Leopold Horner was honored in 1973 with the Liebig Medal of the German Chemical Society ( German Chemical Society ), from 2005 he was an honorary member of the German Chemical Society. In addition, he was a member from 1975 of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the 2001 Cothenius awarded him the medal. In 1995 he was appointed by the Faculty of Chemistry and Biosciences of the University of Karlsruhe honorary doctorate.