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Biographical Memoirs Volume 68 (1995) / Chapter Skim
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John Clark Sheehan
Pages 291-304

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From page 291...
... His teaching and research were instrumental in rejuvenating chemistry anct maintaining its excellence at the institute, which also received enormous financial returns from his successful work on synthetic penicillins. His fundamental research provided the chemical base for the clevelopment of modern semisynthetic penicillins, which have saved countless human lives.
From page 292...
... He was also a zealous competitor in other activities. The Battle Creek newspaper reported him as the premier marble shooter of his grade school, representing the school in the city championships; as winner of the city yo-yo championship with a perfect score, as judged by the world's champion yo-yo player of the time; as a finalist in a Boy Scout election picking a mayor for a day; as having been injured in a high school
From page 293...
... _ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ whom Bachmann had worked earlier. John became a superbly trained experimentalist in the grand tradition of Bachmann and Bachmann's illustrious teacher, Moses Gomberg, the founder of the field of stable carbon free radicals.
From page 294...
... John participated in several key synthetic projects, where research was needed for scale-up to the pilot plant and beyond. One was a new preparation of calcium pantothenate; another was removal of immunogenic materials formed as by-proclucts in fermentation broths for the production of streptomycin; and a thirc!
From page 295...
... Within just four years at MTT John Sheehan became known as one of the most creative and dynamic synthetic organic chemists in the worIcl by his clevelopment of new methods of synthesis of peptides (carbodiimicle coupling and phthaloy! N-protection)
From page 296...
... John later told of his involvement with penicillins in his book, The Enchanted Ring The Untold Story of Penicillin,2 which also includes an account of the complex legal skirmish over the Sheehan-MIT patents on penicillin synthesis. Although the legal battle was protracted MTT eventually received almost $30 million in royalties from the Sheehan patent.
From page 297...
... Besides his work at MIT, Sheehan was involved in two rather unusual research activities of possible interest to those seeking alternative research support mechanisms. Thus, in 195S, the Schering Corporation set up the Research Institute for Medicine and Chemistry in Cambridge close to
From page 298...
... derivatives as potential chemical warfare agents to set up a program aimed at the use of such derivatives in the treatment of nausea resulting from cancer chemotherapy. This work was carried out at a for-profit company called SHARPS Associates and the nonprofit John C
From page 299...
... as much enjoyment in exchanges with John as in the research adventure itself. John Sheehan was a man who made friencis easily and tract many close friends at home as well as abroad the results of his extensive international travels.
From page 300...
... Ryan. The synthesis of substituted penicillins and simpler structural analogs.
From page 301...
... Synthetic peptide models of enzyme active
From page 302...
... Total synthesis of a monocyclic peptide lactone antibiotic, etamycin.


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