2009

Marian Mikolajczyk (Poland) (1937) Professor of Organic Chemistry, Full Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Director of the Centre of Molecular and Macromolecular Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Lodz

Marian Mikolajczyk is widely recognized as one of the leading organophosphorus chemists. He has provided many contributions to: synthetic organophosphorus chemistry, stereochemistry and physical chemistry of organophosphorus compounds, chemistry and stereochemistry of organosulfur compounds, synthetic chemistry. He has directed his skill and experience in heteroorganic chemistry towards the solution of problems on: nucleophilic substitu­ tion at the chiralphosphorus and sulfur atom, mechanism of the reaction between carbodiimides and thio- and selenoacids, synthesis of chiral trivalent phosphorus compounds; anomeric effect phosphorus substituted in cyclic sulfur and selenium compounds. Starting from 1985 his attention was also paid to the synthesis of 1,4-dicarbonyl systems, cyclopentanoid antibiotics, prostaglandins and carbocyclic nucleosides using new organosulfur and organophosphorus reagents. During the last decade he contributed greatly to the development of enzymatic heteroatom chemistry.
The scientific achievements of Professor Marian Mikolajczyk are numerous; most of them are of fundamental importance and were widely cited in the chemical literature.
Marian Mikolajczyk is the winner of many prizes including: Award of the Polish ChemicalSociety, State Award of Poland, and Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse (France) and of the Technical University, Lodz. Professor M. Mikolajczyk has worked as the Visiting Professor at the universities of Germany, France, Israel, USA, and Brazil. He is a member of some international scientific associations: Polish Chemical Society, International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), International Council on Main Group Chemistry,German Chemical Society.