Adventures in Organic Sulfur Chemistry

Abstract

On several occasions, SULFUR REPORTS has invited persons who have done outstanding work in sulfur chemistry to summarize highlights of their research career in a semiautobiographical review. The present account is from a distinguished chemist who has contributed importantly for nearly 50 years to medicinal and organic aspects of sulfur chemistry. Ernest E. Campaigne (who prefers simply E. Campaigne) was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1914. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry and the Ph.D. degree in biochemistry at Northwestern University. After a short stretch of teaching at Bowdoin College, he spent a postdoctoral year with the well-known sulfur chemist C.M. Suter in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University and a year in research at the M.D. Anderson Hospital for Cancer Research in Texas. In 1943, he joined the faculty of Indiana University, where he rose to the rank of Professor of Chemistry in 1953 and from which he became Professor Emeritus in 1979. Over the years he has spent time at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Universities of California at Los Angeles and San Francisco, University College (London), Cambridge University, and many of the universities in Australia. He has been a consultant for many years to major industrial companies, as well as to the National Institutes of Health, the Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, and the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center. For the American Chemical Society, Professor Campaigne not only has had many important general responsibilities but has served in many ways in the Divisions of Medicinal and Organic Chemistry; he also has played a role in the affairs of IUPAC. He has served on several editorial boards, has his name on four textbooks, and has authored nearly 300 publications in medicinal and organic chemistry, particularly in relevance to sulfur chemistry and heterocycles. The table of contents below shows the breadth of his interests and the areas highlighted in his article. Included are interesting ideas others may wish to carry forward.

Key Words:

• Thiones
• thials
• thiophenes
• cyclizations
• benzothiophenes
• dithiolium salts
• thiourea derivatives