title: Melvin Calvin award lecture, Isotopic chemistry: the most varied of careers…with tritium and deuterium the most versatile of the isotopes.
abstract: Isotopic chemistry offers the opportunity for organic chemists to explore a surprisingly large variety of scientific avenues. It lends itself naturally to multidisciplinary research projects and provides the sophisticated tools with which the most complex of processes can be investigated. This Melvin Calvin Award lecture will keep to a broadly chronological theme and will give examples of how the remarkable versatility of the two heavy hydrogen isotopes has been utilised during collaborative studies in areas as varied as plant and insect biochemistry, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, structure determination, NMR spectroscopy, reaction mechanisms, molecular energetics and novel catalyst development. Few other careers can provide the opportunity to study such varied and fundamental subjects and still provide challenges that are as compelling and exciting some 4 decades later.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK.
authors.forename: William J S
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Lockley
mesh_terms: D000475:Alkenes / Q000737:chemistry; D000480:Alkynes / Q000737:chemistry; D001363:Awards and Prizes; D003903:Deuterium / Q000737:chemistry*; D005858:Germany; D007553:Isotope Labeling; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D013237:Stereoisomerism; D014316:Tritium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000475:Alkenes; D000480:Alkynes; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D014316:Tritium; D003903:Deuterium