Key Chiral Auxiliary Applications

Greg Roos' formal education comprised of a BSc (1971), BSc Honours (1972), and PhD in Organic Synthesis (1976) from the University of Cape Town. A postdoctoral fellowship with Richard Cookson at the University of Southampton was followed by a few years of pharmaceutical industrial experience. His fulltime academic career involved the University of Natal, South Africa (1981-1994), Murdoch University, Australia (1994-1997), and an extended period in the Middle East, including Sultan Qaboos University, Oman (1998-2004) and The Petroleum Institute, Abu Dhabi (2004-2008). He has successfully taught across various cultures and has received awards for his teaching contributions and innovations. Since 2009, as an adjunct Professor at Murdoch University, he shares his time between Australia and Dubai. His research interests have focused on the development of synthetic methodology, with particular interest in asymmetric processes. This provided numerous publications in the areas of the Baylis-Hillman reaction, imidazolidinone chiral auxiliaries, and dirhodium catalyst development and applications. This period also included a number of productive collaborative visits with Tony McKervey (University College Cork & Queen's University, Belfast), C. K. Sha (Shin Hua University, Taiwan), Mike Doyle (Trinity University, San Antonio), and Ron Warrener (CQU Rockhampton, Queensland). In 2001 he received the Merck Gold Medal for research from the South African Chemical Institute.