Abstract
PROF. G. A. R. KON, whose appointment to the chair of chemistry at the Chester Beatty Research Institute, Royal Cancer Hospital (Free), was recently announced, is a graduate of the University of Cambridge ; but his career as a chemist has until now been connected with the Imperial College of Science and Technology. Beginning research there in 1914, he was one of the band of workers associated with the late Sir Jocelyn Thorpe in the founding of his school of organic chemistry. Prof. Kon's early work dealt with ring formation and the like, and in the course of it he came across certain ketones exhibiting unusual properties. After the presentation of his D. Sc. thesis in 1922 he followed up these early observations, embarking on a long series of investigations dealing with three-carbon tautomerism, a phenomenon which had not, until then, received systematic attention. One outcome of this work, to which Prof. R. P. Linstead also made substantial contributions, was the elucidation of the chemistry of the glutaconic acids. The contradictory nature of these compounds, which had previously been the subject of controversy between Thorpe's school and that of Feist in Germany, was shown to be due to the simultaneous existence of three-carbon tautomerism and stereoisomerism.
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Prof. G. A. R. Kon. Nature 151, 49–50 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151049c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151049c0