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]
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.[7]
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 constant - The Hansch-Fujita 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).
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).[8][9][10][6]
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.
^Coats, Eugene; Seydel, Joachim; Leo, Albert (1988). "Corwin Hansch. The Pioneer of QSAR". Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationships. 7 (3): 119–120. doi:10.1002/qsar.19880070302.
^ abMaugh, Thomas H. [II] (May 31, 2011). "Corwin Hansch dies at 92; scientist whose advances led to new drugs and chemicals". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
^ abWeber, Jamie (2013). "Guide to the Corwin Hansch Collection" (PDF). Pomona College Archives. Claremont, CA 91711. p. 3. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
^"1975 Tolman Award Medalist, Dr. Corwin Hansch, Carnegie Professor of Chemistry, Pomona College". Southern California Section of the American Chemical Society. 22 August 2013.
^Kendall, Mark. "In Memoriam: Corwin H. Hansch | Pomona College Magazine". Retrieved 2022-08-08.
^Hansch, Corwin (1993-04-01). "Quantitative structure-activity relationships and the unnamed science". Accounts of Chemical Research. 26 (4): 147–153. doi:10.1021/ar00028a003. ISSN 0001-4842.
^Martin, Yvonne C; Stouch, Terry (June 28, 2011). "In tribute to Corwin Hansch, father of QSAR". J Comput Aided Mol Des. 25 (6): 491. Bibcode:2011JCAMD..25..491M. doi:10.1007/s10822-011-9449-6. PMID 21710390.
^Fujita, Toshio (June 22, 2011). "In memoriam professor Corwin Hansch: birth pangs of QSAR before 1961". J Comput Aided Mol Des. 25 (6): 509–517. Bibcode:2011JCAMD..25..509F. doi:10.1007/s10822-011-9450-0. PMID 21695492. S2CID 9840489.
^Marino, M. (2004). "Biography of Jennifer A. Doudna". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101 (49): 16987–9. Bibcode:2004PNAS..10116987M. doi:10.1073/pnas.0408147101. PMC535403. PMID 15574498.