| Citation | Professor Barrett is distinguished for his syntheses of antibiotics and antifungal agents of medicinal importance. He has also made important contributions to other aspects of heterocyclic natural product chemistry, and to paracyclophanes, dextrophanes and star-porphyrazines.
Barrett has made important contributions to the application of oragnometallic reagents in the synthesis of natural products. His work on reactions of iron and chromium vinylidenes and acetylides is particularly noteworthy. His recent work on the remarkable radical chemistry of tetraphenyldistibine will have a major influence on synthetic chemistry.
Barrett's work is characterized by an exemplary knowledge of the chemistry of all the elements. This is applied to elegant syntheses, mostly in the domain of biologically important natural products. |