Clayton Heathcock

Clayton Howell Heathcock ( born July 21, 1936 in San Antonio, Texas) is an American chemist (organic synthesis).

Heathcock studied at Abilene Christian College with a Bachelor 's degree in chemistry in 1958 and in 1963 received his doctorate at the University of Colorado. As a post-doctoral fellow he was with Gilbert Stork at Columbia University. From 1964 he was assistant professor and in 1975 professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

He succeeded in attaining synthesis of complex alkaloids from plants and fungi, steroids and terpenes, and he also developed new methods in organic synthesis.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1995), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1991 ), the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 1978 he received the Humboldt Research Award, the 1986 Ernest Guenther Award, 1990 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 1990, he was Arthur C. Cope Scholar, 1996, the Centenary Medal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, 2002 HC Brown Award of the ACS and in 1991 received the Prelog medal. 1967 to 1969 he was a Sloan Fellow.

He was editor of Organic Syntheses and the Journal of Organic Chemistry and wrote a textbook of organic chemistry.

He has been married since 1980 and has four children.

Writings

• Andrew Streitwieser, Edward M. Kosower: Introduction to Organic Chemistry, 4th Edition, Macmillan 1992 German translation: Organic Chemistry, Wiley -VCH, 2nd edition, 1994