David Evans Is 2006 Seaborg Medalist

David A. Evans, Abbott & James Lawrence Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University, has been selected as the 2006 Seaborg Medalist. He will receive his award during a symposium on Nov. 4.

Evans has made fundamental advances in the design of stereoselective reactions and the applications of these reactions to natural products synthesis. Over the past two decades, reaction methodology directed toward achieving absolute stereocontrol in carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions has been one of the central themes developed in his laboratory. Enantioselective Diels-Alder, Michael, and aldol reactions are only three of the important families of processes developed in his laboratory.

In the area of synthesis design, Evans was the first to achieve the de novo synthesis of complex natural products through the exclusive use of chiral auxiliaries to control stereochemical relationships. This represented a dramatic departure from the more prevalent reliance on the "chiral pool" for structural components of the target structure.