Russian Chemical Bulletin, VoL 44, No. 9, September, 1995 ix

N. S. Zefirov (on his 60th birthday)

Dear Nikolai Serafimovich/

The Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Division of General and Technical Chemistry of the RAS, and the Editorial Board and the editorial staff of the Russian Chemical Bulletin journal congratulate you on your 60th birthday.

You began your scientific activity at the Chair of Organic Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry of the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University and worked your way up from a junior research fellow to the Head of the Chair, a Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Your studies in the field of organic synthesis, the theory of reaction mechanisms, stereochemistry of organic compounds, and mathematical chemistry have received wide recognition and occupy a deserved place in world science. The results of your studies of nucleophilic'properties of nucleofugic anions became a scientific discovery. You have developed principles of controlling electrophilic reactions of alkenes; synthesized organic covalently bonded perchlorates; created a great number of new reagents, such as chlorine chlorosulfate, chlorine ethoxysulfate, dialkylaminochlorosulfamates, and diphenyldiazonium bistriflate, known as "Zefirov reagent". You have developed methods for activating weak electrolytes in reactions of electrophilic addition to multiple bonds, discovered unique skeletal rearrangements, developed a concept of stereocontrol in ion-pair addition reactions, which made it possible to predict stereo- and regioselectivity of organic reactions.

You pay considerable attention to fine organic synthesis. Thanks to your studies in this field, highly strained and energy- consuming spiro-joint cyclopropanes, viz., chain, branched, and cyclic triangulanes; highly strained cage compounds; and organic compounds of new types and classes, such as alkane and cycloalkane sulfamates and chlorosulfides, oxa- and thiaadamantanes, heterobicyclononanes, new iodine ylides, crown ethers, and many others have been synthesized.

You contributed significantly to the solution of fundamental problems of stereochemistry and conformational analysis, beginning with the definition of the terms of stereochemical configuration and abstract configuration. You identified the relationship between conformational behavior and reactivity, developed general approaches to conformational analysis of carbo- and heterocyclic molecules and discovered new conformational effects, for example, the "golf club effect".

You are the author of fundamental works in the field of mathematical and computer chemistry. New procedures for identification of the "structure--property" and "structure--activity" relationships (QSAR) have been developed by you; the approaches to solve the reverse problem, viz., generation of structures with specified properties, have been elaborated for the first time; a formal logical approach to the description of organic reactions has been suggested. This approach made it possible to create computer programs for searching for new reactions and to plan organic synthesis.

Your scientific-organizing and pedagogical activities are widely known. You are Director of the Institute of Physiologically Active Substances of the RAS, Head of the Laboratory of Mathematical Chemistry and Computer Synthesis at the N. D. Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of the RAS, Head of the Chair of Organic Chemistry and the Laboratory of Organic Synthesis at the M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Chairman of the Scientific Council on Fine Organic Synthesis of the RAS, Chairman of the Expert Council on Organic Chemistry of Higher Attestation Commission, a member of Editorial Boards of a number of scientific journals on chemistry. You created a scientific school, which numbers tens of Doctors of Science, who advantageously work both in Russia and abroad.

Your scientific achievements have been honored with government Prizes, the State Prize, the M. V. Lomonosov Prize of the RAS, and the A. M. Butlerov Prize.

We wish you, dear Nikolai Serafimovich, great successes in science, high capacity for work, good health, and happiness.

Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 9, p. 1612, September, 1995.

1066-5285/95/4409-00ix $12.50 �9 1995 Plenum Publishing Corporation