(Emeritus)

Department of Chemistry National University of Ireland University College Cork Cork, Ireland Tel: +353-(0)21-4902488 Fax. +353-(0)21-4274097 (Departmental Office) E-mail: l.murphy@ucc.ie

 

 

Associate Professor of Organic Chemistry

Professor Liam (W.S.) Murphy is a native of Limerick. He graduated with both a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from U.C.C. Then followed three years research at the then Northern Polytechnic, London (now University of North London) for which he was awarded the Ph.D. degree. A one-year postdoctoral fellowship was spent with H.C. Brown at Purdue University, Indiana and another with the late C.R. Hauser at Duke University, N.C. He returned to the staff of U.C.C. in 1965. In between times, he has taken periods of study leave at M.I.T. (Boston), V.P.I. (Virginia), Imperial College (London) and at the Universities of Oxford and Le Mans. He has lectured in Italy, France and Great Britain, as well as in the U.S., Korea, and Canada. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Chemistry of Ireland. He was awarded the D.Sc. degree in 1981. In 1982 he was appointed Associate Professor. He describes himself as an Organic Chemist with wide interests in teaching and research.

Research Interests 

• Interests include chemistry of heterocyclics, development of new synthetic methods and applications of new synthetic techniques to organic synthesis of natural products and analogues of potential biological activity.

• Current research projects underway involve synthesis of mitomycin antibiotics; novel estrogens, steroidal antibiotics; sesquiterpenes; quinonoid antibiotics.These substances are constantly tested for biological activity.

• Currently involved in collaborative research and development with industry and other research groups in Ireland, Britain, Canada, France, Poland and Spain; interested in maintaining and extending these activities at home and abroad.

Some interesting compounds

Representative Publications

(1) W.S. Murphy and P.J. O'Sullivan; Regiospecific Synthesis of Mitosenes; Tetrahedron Letters, (1992) 531.

(2) M.G. Fallon, D. Mulcahy, W.S. Murphy and J.D. Glennon; Cs-Ion Selective Electrodes based on Benzoquinones, Analyst, 121 (1996) 127.

(3) D. Neville and W.S. Murphy; Novel Lewis Acid Promoted Spiroannulation versus [2 + 2]-Cycloaddition of Dihydrofuran and Dihydropyran to Quinones, Tetrahedron Letters, (1996) 5221.

(4) W.S. Murphy, D. Neville and G. Ferguson; Regiospecific Free Radical Annulation Reactions of Diethylbenzylmalonate with Unsymmetrical 1,4-Naphthoquinones: A Direct Approach to Ring A Aromatic Angucyclinones; Tetrahedron Letters, (1996) 7615.

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Last Update: 02-10-2001/aar