David Adriaan van Dorp explained

David 'Davy' Adriaan van Dorp (April 27, 1915 in Amsterdam  - February 19, 1995 in Vlaardingen) was a Dutch chemist.

Biography

Van Dorp was born as the son of Hendrik van Dorp and Maria van Dorp, and studied chemistry in Amsterdam where he received a PhD for his thesis Aneurine en gistphosphatase in 1941.

In 1946, while employed by the Dutch company Organon in Oss, Van Dorp and Jozef Ferdinand Arens ('Coco') (1914-2001) published the synthesis for vitamin A acid in the scientific journal Nature.[1] In 1947, they completed the first full synthesis for the complex compound vitamin A, by taking the final step and turning the acid in an alcohol.[2] Their synthesis was not to be used for commercial production, as an alternative route that was published soon after by Otto Isler (1910-1992) and co-workers at (Hoffmann-La Roche) turned out to be much more suited for upscaling.

Van Dorp joined the Unilever Research Laboratory in Vlaardingen in 1959, and was a key person in the studies regarding the role of arachidonic acid in the metabolic pathway to prostaglandin E2, in close cooperation with Sune K. Bergström who would later receive a Nobel prize for his work on prostaglandins.

In 1973 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[3]

References

External links

Notes and References

  1. Arens JF, Van Dorp DA . Synthesis of some compounds possessing vitamin A activity . Nature . 157 . 190 . February 1946 . 21015124 . 10.1038/157190a0 .
  2. Van Dorp DA, Arens JF . Synthesis of vitamin A aldehyde . Nature . 159 . 4058 . 189 . August 1947 . 20256189 . 10.1038/160189a0 . free .
  3. Web site: D.A. van Dorp (1915 - 1995) . Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences . 27 July 2015.