Leading German Researcher Awarded Elsevier's 2011 Tetrahedron Prize

AMSTERDAM, February 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Professor Dr. Manfred T. Reetz honored for his work on synthetic organic chemistry

Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, announces that leading German scientist, Professor Dr. Manfred T. Reetz (Emeritus) of the Max-Planck-Institut fur Kohlenforschung and Hans Meerwein Research Professor at Philipps-Universität, Marburg, has been awarded the 2011 Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry.

The Executive Board of Editors of Elsevier's Tetrahedron Publications selected Professor Reetz for his many outstanding contributions to synthetic organic chemistry, especially for his work on enantioselective catalysis to control stereoselectivity. He has been prominent in the discovery and development of enzyme catalysts for asymmetric reactions. These enzyme catalysts can be developed in the laboratory to suit a specific reaction using a process of directed evolution: repeatedly selecting and growing the host organism which shows the highest yield of the enzyme required.

"Winners of the Tetrahedron prize are leaders in their field. They are the scientists who, through their outstanding creativity in organic chemistry, have moved the field in a new and significant direction. Elsevier is proud to recognize this creativity by the presentation of this prize," Diddel Francissen, Executive Publisher for the Tetrahedron Publications at Elsevier, said of the annual prize.

Elsevier's Tetrahedron Prize consists of a gold medal and a monetary award. Established in 1980 to honor the memory of the founding co-Chairmen of the Tetrahedron Publications, Professor Sir Robert Robinson and Professor Robert Burns Woodward, it is awarded for creativity in Organic Chemistry or Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry. Previous recipients include: Albert Eschenmoser, Elias J. Corey, Gilbert Stork, Arthur J. Birch, Michael J.S. Dewar, William S. Johnson, Ryoji Noyori;  K. Barry Sharpless, Alan R. Battersby;  A. Ian Scott, Samuel Danishefsky, Stuart L. Schreiber, David A. Evans, Teruaki Mukaiyama, Henri B. Kagan, Peter B. Dervan, Yoshito Kishi, Kyriacos C. Nicolaou, Robert H. Grubbs, Dieter Seebach, Koji Nakanishi, Bernd Giese, Hisashi Yamamoto, J. Fraser Stoddart, Larry E. Overman, Steven V. Ley and Satoshi Ōmura.

The Tetrahedron Prize will be presented to Professor Reetz at the Fall 2012 American Chemical Society National Meeting in Philadelphia, USA.

For more information on the Tetrahedron Prize please click here.

About Tetrahedron Publications 

Elsevier's Tetrahedron cluster of journals consists of: Tetrahedron, Tetrahedron Letters, Tetrahedron Assymetry, Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry and Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters. All these journals provide an international forum for the publication of research in all areas of (bio)organic and medicinal chemistry.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

Media contact
Diddel Francissen
Elsevier
+31-20-4852588
d.francissen@elsevier.com