Alessandro Degl’Innocenti was born in Florence on July 19, 1950 and graduated in Chemistry at the University of Florence in 1976.
After a year of military service, from 1978 to 1979, he spent one year as research fellow at the Sussex University, Brighton (U.K.). During this period he began to work on the chemistry of organosilicon compounds, in collaboration with Prof. David R. M. Walton.
In 1979 he joined the group of Prof. Alfredo Ricci at the Department of Organic Chemistry in Florence. After a period as voluntary assistant, in 1982 he obtained a permanent position at C.N.R. in the Department of Organic Chemistry in Florence.
He developed the chemistry of silylated compounds, working on several aspects of such derivatives. His research was mainly focused on the synthesis and reactivity of acylsilanes as anion equivalents, and on ESR and EPR investigations to elucidate their structure and their chemical behaviour.
In 1986 he joined the group of Prof. Gary H. Posner as research fellow at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (USA), working on unsaturated macrolides.
After his return to Florence, he became familiar with the organic chemistry of sulfur. His interest was mainly focused on the idea of using thiosilanes to synthesize thiocarbonyl compounds, such as thioacylsilanes, thioketones and thioaldehydes. In this period he had a fruitful collaboration with the group of Prof. Ricci and Prof. Bianca F. Bonini at the University of Bologna (Italy) to investigate the functionalization of thiocarbonyls with silylated nucleophiles.
In 1992 Alessandro Degl’Innocenti was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Basilicata and consequently he moved to Potenza, where he continued and further developed the chemistry of sulfurated compounds. He found a general way to obtain stable amino-thioaldehydes, and the investigation of their chemical behaviour led to the synthesis of different sulfurated heterocycles.
During this period he had also the opportunity to start a collaboration with Prof. Patrick Metzner at the University of Caen (France) on sulfines functionalization with organosilanes, and later on with Professor Alan R. Katritzky at the University of Florida (USA) for the synthesis of thioacylsilanes mediated by benzotriazole derivatives.
In 1995 he moved back to the University of Florence, where five years later he was appointed Full Professor. His research was centered toward the synthesis and reactivity of five-membered silyl thiaheterocycles and on the functionalization of ring strained systems with thiosilanes.
More recently, his research group was investigating the chemistry of silylated selenides. Some results were reported on the synthesis of selenoaldehydes, selenoacylsilanes, β-functionalized selenides and diselenides, selenolesters and acylselenides. In very recent years the collaboration with the group of Prof. Marcello Tiecco and Prof. Andrea Temperini at the University of Perugia (Italy) and with Prof. Josè Luis Garcia Ruano and Prof. Ana M. Martìn Castro at the University of Madrid (Spain) led him to discover an approach to β-aminoacids via organoselenium intermediates and of chiral disubstituted 2-selenoamines. Unfortunately he was not able to further investigate these new aspects of the chemistry of organoselenosilanes.
Professor Alessandro Degl’Innocenti was the author of about 130 publications, including one patent, and gave many lectures as an invited speaker.
From 2001 to 2012 he was a permanent member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Symposium on the Organic Chemistry of Sulfur (ISOCS).
He was a member of the organizing committee of OMCOS V (Florence, 1989), and Chairman of ISOCS-24 held in Florence in 2010.
From 2001 to 2007 he was the scientific supervisor for the Florence research unit of a national research project financed by the Ministry of Education, and from 2007 to 2009 he was the Director of HeteroBioLab, an interdepartmental research laboratory of the University of Florence, a bridge-unit between the Organic Chemistry and the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department.
He was a referee for several scientific journals, including the Journal of Organic Chemistry, European Journal of Organic Chemistry, Synlett, Tetrahedron, Tetrahedron Letters, Arkivoc.
He was the scientific supervisor of a very large number of thesis in University of Florence and Potenza, and he was recognized as a very talented teacher (in Italian, maestro) and examiner for higher degrees.
He was able to transfer to all the students and coworkers his curiosity and enthusiasm for chemistry and research.
All those who worked with him will miss his knowledge, kindness and patience as teacher and colleague, and the suggestions and support he gave to all. He took a keen personal interest in his staff and students, and worked untiringly for their benefit and welfare; he retained an unfailing ability to listen, to talk and reassure.
Alessandro Degl’Innocenti will be missed by the scientific community for his scientific contribution and he will remain in our memory not only as an excellent chemist but also as a wonderful friend and colleague: this is the collective comment of colleagues and friends on the occasion of his passing on May 12, 2012.