Corwin Hansch Explained

Birth Name:	Corwin Herman Hansch
Birth Date:	6 October 1918
Birth Place:	Kenmare, North Dakota, US
Death Place:	Claremont, California, US
Field:	Organic Chemistry
Work Institutions:	Pomona College Manhattan Project
Alma Mater:	University of Illinois New York University
Spouse:	Gloria J. Hansch (nee Tomasulo) (m.1945?–2011) (his death) (1 child)
Doctoral Advisor:	Harry Gustave Lindwall^[1]
Thesis Title:	Syntheses of 3-substituted thianaphthenes
Thesis Year:	1944
Thesis Url:	http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/795564953
Known For:	Hansch equation QSAR
Awards:	Tolman Award (1975)

Corwin Herman Hansch (October 6, 1918 – May 8, 2011)^[2] was a professor of chemistry at Pomona College in California. He became known as the 'father of computer-assisted molecule design.'^[3]

Education and career

Hansch was born on October 6, 1918, in Kenmare, North Dakota. He earned a BS from the University of Illinois in 1940 and a PhD from New York University in 1944. He briefly worked as a postdoc at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Hansch worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago and as a group leader at DuPont Nemours in Richland, Washington. In February 1946 he received an academic position at Pomona College, where he taught until 1988.^{[4] [5]} Hansch completed sabbaticals at ETH Zurich with Vladimir Prelog and at University of Munich with Rolf Huisgen.

Hansch taught Organic Chemistry for many years at Pomona College, and was known for giving complex lectures without using notes. His course in Physical Bio-Organic Medicinal Chemistry was ground-breaking at an undergraduate level.

Hansch may be best known as the father of the concept of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR), the quantitative correlation of the physicochemical properties of molecules with their biological activities.^[6]

He is also noted for the Hansch equation, which is used in

• Multivariate Statistics - Multivariate statistics is a set of statistical tools to analyse data (e.g., chemical and biological) matrices using regression and/or pattern recognition techniques.
• Hansch Analysis - Hansch analysis is the investigation of the quantitative relationship between the biological activity of a series of compounds and their physicochemical substituent or global parameters representing hydrophobic, electronic, steric and other effects using multiple regression correlation methodology.
• Hansch-Fujita

\pi constant - The Hansch-Fujita \pi constant describes the contribution of a substituent to the lipophilicity of a compound.

Research Interests:Organic Chemistry

Interaction of organic chemicals with living organisms, Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR).

• Fragment based regression analysis for quantitative structure-activity relationship (Hansch-analysis)

Death

He died of pneumonia on May 8, 2011, in Claremont, California, at 92.

Notes

His research group at Pomona College worked on QSAR studies and in building and expanding the database of chemical and physical data as C-QSAR and Bioloom. His postgraduate associates were Rajni Garg, Cynthia R. D. Selassie, Suresh Babu Mekapati, and Alka Kurup.

The Journal of Computer-Aided Molecular Design carried four obituaries (as found in a Pubmed personal subject [ps] search).^{[7] [8] [9] [10]}

Among his students at Pomona was Jennifer Doudna, co-recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Doudna has credited Hansch as an influence.^[11]

Bibliography

A preliminary search in WorldCat and in PubMed, two among many relevant bibliographic and citation indexes, shows the following:

• Books: WorldCat shows "53 works in 204 publications in 4 languages and 2,004 library holdings" for Hansch as "author, editor, other".^[12] The top item in the list is "Exploring QSAR" by Corwin Hansch, Albert Leo and David Hoekman, an ACS professional reference book in 28 editions published between 1995 and 2014.
• Journal articles: 281 Pubmed records^[13]
• Reviews: authored 33 reviews as indexed in Pubmed^[14]
• Title word search: 56 Pubmed records^[15]

The Pomona College Archives holds reprints of Hansch's articles published between 1962 and 2009 in addition to other materials.

See also

• Hammett equation
• Craig plot
• David Weininger

External links

• Example for Hansch equation and Hansch-Fujita \pi constant
• Corwin Hansch, The QSAR and Modelling Society News, October 1998
• Corwin Hansch Collection, Pomona College Archives. Pomona College. Claremont, CA 91711, Guide to the Corwin Hansch Collection
• Former homepage - url, Pomona College
• Hansch Award of the QSAR, Cheminformatics and Modeling Society (QCMS) (previously "The QSAR and Modelling Society"), 2000-

Notes and References

1. Coats . Eugene . Seydel . Joachim . Leo . Albert . 1988 . Corwin Hansch. The Pioneer of QSAR . Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships . en . 7 . 3 . 119–120 . 10.1002/qsar.19880070302.
2. News: Maugh. Thomas H. [II]. Corwin Hansch dies at 92; scientist whose advances led to new drugs and chemicals. 5 August 2016. Los Angeles Times. May 31, 2011.
3. Web site: Weber. Jamie. Guide to the Corwin Hansch Collection. Pomona College Archives. Claremont, CA 91711. 5 August 2016. 2013. 3.
4. Web site: 1975 Tolman Award Medalist, Dr. Corwin Hansch, Carnegie Professor of Chemistry, Pomona College. Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society. 22 August 2013.
5. Web site: Kendall . Mark . In Memoriam: Corwin H. Hansch Pomona College Magazine . 2022-08-08 . en-US.
6. Hansch . Corwin . 1993-04-01 . Quantitative structure-activity relationships and the unnamed science . Accounts of Chemical Research . en . 26 . 4 . 147–153 . 10.1021/ar00028a003 . 0001-4842.
7. Martin. Yvonne C. Remembrances of Corwin Hansch. J Comput Aided Mol Des. Jun 29, 2011. 25. 6. 519–523. 10.1007/s10822-011-9452-y. 21713458. 2011JCAMD..25..519M. 35854016.
8. Martin. Yvonne C. Stouch. Terry. In tribute to Corwin Hansch, father of QSAR. J Comput Aided Mol Des.. June 28, 2011. 25. 6. 491. 10.1007/s10822-011-9449-6. 21710390. 2011JCAMD..25..491M. free.
9. Fujita. Toshio. In memoriam professor Corwin Hansch: birth pangs of QSAR before 1961. J Comput Aided Mol Des. June 22, 2011. 25. 6. 509–517. 10.1007/s10822-011-9450-0. 21695492. 2011JCAMD..25..509F. 9840489.
10. Selassie. Cynthia Rachel . Cynthia Selassie . Obituary: Corwin H. Hansch. J Comput Aided Mol Des. June 21, 2011. 25. 6. 493–494. 10.1007/s10822-011-9445-x. 21691812. 2011JCAMD..25..493S. 207165325. free.
11. 10.1073/pnas.0408147101 . 15574498 . Biography of Jennifer A. Doudna . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 101 . 49 . 16987–9 . 2004 . Marino . M. . 2004PNAS..10116987M . 535403 . free .
12. Web site: [WorldCat search - books authored, edited, contributed]]. WorldCat. August 5, 2016.
13. Web site: 281 articles, author search. Pubmed. 5 August 2016.
14. Web site: 33 authored reviews.. Pubmed. 5 August 2016.
15. Web site: title word Pubmed records. PubMed. 5 August 2016.