The sultan of synthesis
Phil Baran is spurring organic chemists to rethink how they make complex compounds, as Mark Peplow discovers
‘Nothing really inspired me until chemistry came along – it was love at first sight.’ This love affair has consumed US chemist Phil Baran of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California for more than 20 years, and propelled him to the forefront of organic chemistry. ‘He’s the best synthetic chemist of his generation,’ says David Schuster of New York University in the US. ‘And he’s a helluva nice guy.’