| Citation | Motherwell is distinguished for his discovery, invention and development of a range of new and unusual synthetic methods used in contemporary organic chemistry. Early pioneering studies of free radical chain reactions, in collaboration with D H R Barton, were followed by the invention of new radical processes for the novel synthesis of difluoromethylene-linked disaccharides and glycopeptides. Major contributions to main group organometallic chemistry, particularly the discovery of novel organozinc carbenoids, and to transition metal catalysed reactions, involving Rh, Ni and Os, and their applications in synthesis, have also been made. Motherwell developed a conceptually unusual approach to enolate anions involving transition metal mediated enantioselective isomerisations of allylic alcohols, and has designed new methods for selective fluorinations of organic substrates using hypervalent iodoarene difluorides. He achieved the first in vitro catalytic transformation of benzene and other arenes into cyclitols, using OsO4-BaCIO4, under actinic irradiation, complementing approaches involving micgroorganisms. Recent research programs involve the design of new thionitrite esters and nitric oxide in biology, together with the semi-rational design of artificial enzymes using molecular imprinting of a transition state mimic within a polymeric matrix. Motherwell is widely regarded as one of the most original designers of new synthetic methods of his generation, and a leading organic chemist in the field. |