Professor Michael North

Professor of Organic Chemistry and joint director of the URC in Catalysis and Intensified Processing

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Professor Michael North F.R.S.C. C.Chem – Curriculum Vitae

Michael North was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, England in 1964. He was educated in local schools before studying Chemistry at Durham University between 1982 and 1985. He graduated with first class honours and moved to Oxford University to carry out doctoral studies under the supervision of Professor Sir Jack Baldwin. His D.Phil was awarded in 1988 for a thesis entitled ‘New Synthetic Routes to Amino Acids’.

 

After obtaining his D.Phil, Michael moved to Nottingham University as the ICI research fellow and worked with Professor Gerald Pattenden on the total synthesis of complex cyclic peptides containing thiazole and oxazole rings. In 1990 he was appointed to his first academic post – lecturer of organic chemistry at the University of Wales, Bangor and in 1995 was promoted to senior lecturer. In 1999 he moved to the University of London (King’s College) as reader of synthetic organic chemistry and in 2001 was promoted to professor of synthetic organic chemistry. This led to him being appointed professor of organic chemistry at the University of Newcastle in 2004.

 

In 2001, Professor North led an international consortium of chemists who were awarded the 2001 Descartes Prize by the European Commission for their work on ‘Development of New Asymmetric Catalysts for Chemical Manufacturing’. A key factor in the award of this prize was the discovery and development of the CACHyTM class of asymmetric catalysts for asymmetric cyanohydrin synthesis. The consortium included:

 

·        Professor Yuri Belokon at the Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds in Moscow

·        Professor Henri Kagan at the Laboratory for Asymmetric Synthesis of the University of South Paris (Orsay)

·        Dr. John Brown at the Dyson Perrins Laboratory of the University of Oxford

·        Dr. Armin Borner at the Max-Plank institute for catalysis in Rostock

 

Professor North has been a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry since 1986 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1995. He is a member of the editorial advisory panel for Letters in Organic Chemistry.

 

Professor North currently runs a research group of two postdoctoral research fellows and three PhD students (from UK and Spain). Students from Europe also regularly join his group for shorter periods under the Erasmus scheme. Research interests within the group are currently centred on the development of novel catalytic processes, but previous work has been wide ranging and included:

 

·        Polymer chemistry (ROMP and radical polymerisation of amino acid derivatives)

·        Peptide chemistry (synthesis of conformationally constrained peptides and prebiotic peptide synthesis)

·        Non-catalytic chiral chemistry (desymmetrization of meso-anhydrides and use of amino acids as chiral starting materials)

 

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