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Jack aldwin Professor Sir Jack Baldwin FRS. fermentation — led him further into the field of Elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1986, Professor
Day’s RS biography describes him as ‘a pioneer
biomimetic synthesis. His favoured approach for
building complex multi-ring structures was to try to of materials chemistry, seeking unusual physical
(1938 – 2020)
mimic nature’s strategy of making a relatively simple properties in inorganic and metal–organic compounds
Organic chemist whose rules aided After four years on the linear framework that is predisposed to react to give and models to explain them. He played a major role
the synthesis of natural products. staff at Imperial College, multiple rings in a single step. The ‘molecules from in the development of mixed-valence chemistry, and
Baldwin spent more than Mars’ he made using this approach included unusual carried out important and elegant experimental and
Georgina Ferry a decade in the United alkaloids derived from marine sponges and rare theoretical work on the spectra, magnetic properties
States, working first rainforest plants. and conductivity of solid, inorganic complexes’.
“Chemistry,” Jack Baldwin once said in his direct way, at Pennsylvania State University in State College and
“is about making forms of matter that have never then at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Baldwin had little time for the academic conventions Day was born on 20 August 1938 in East Malling,
existed.” Baldwin was best known for formulating a set (MIT) in Cambridge. With an able young team and the of Oxford: he spoke his mind, and could seem Kent, and educated at Maidstone Grammar School.
of rules that predict how likely it is that atoms (mostly latest instruments, his MIT period was particularly pugnacious in scientific debate. But his forceful He was an undergraduate and then a DPhil student
carbon) in a synthesis will link into rings, a structural productive. To develop a detailed picture of how leadership style belied a generosity in his treatment in Chemistry at Wadham College and completed a
feature of many biological molecules and drugs. atoms arrange themselves during organic reactions, of junior colleagues. Wholly committed to research, doctoral thesis entitled “Light induced charge transfer
Published in just three pages (with a one-sentence he combined theoretical and geometric considerations he never sought seats on prestigious committees, in solids” under the supervision of Bob Williams in
abstract) in 1976 (J. E. Baldwin J. Chem. Soc. Chem. with structural information. His team obtained this although his distinction brought many honours, 1965. During his time at Oxford he was a Junior
Commun. 734–736; 1976), Baldwin’s rules have been using techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance including a knighthood in 1997. He developed links Research Fellow (1963-65) at St John’s College, and
fundamental to organic synthesis in the pharmaceutical and X-ray crystallography. At MIT, he created a class with the chemical industry and championed its role in then Official Fellow and Tutor in Inorganic Chemistry
and agrochemical industries, and to understanding of biomimetic molecule that reversibly binds oxygen society, encouraging his students to pursue industrial (1965-88) at St John’s and a University Lecturer.
biology from a chemical perspective. He died on 4 when complexed with iron, just as haemoglobin does in careers. Aside from science, he enjoyed good food, During this time he and his colleague Tony Cheetham
January, aged 81. fine wine, powerful motorbikes, fast cars and his dogs.
the blood, and formulated his rules for ring formation. co-edited what became a standard undergraduate
It was also where he met his future wife, Christine After he retired in 2005, he continued to co-author text book on solid-state chemistry.
His passions also encompassed finding out how nature Franchi, who built a career in academic publishing. publications until just months before his death.
makes chemicals that researchers cannot. This led Having become a leading advocate for the use of
him to ‘biomimetic’ synthesis: using the principles of In 1978, Baldwin was recruited to head the Dyson Reprinted by permission from Springer Nature Customer Service neutron scattering in chemistry he took up the
nature to improve the generation of biomolecules in Perrins Laboratory at the University of Oxford, UK. Centre GmbH: Springer Nature. Nature (Nature 578, 212 (2020) Directorship of the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble
the laboratory. He particularly relished the challenge As only the fourth person to hold the chair in organic doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-00357-1. Jack Baldwin (1938–2020), in 1988, returning to the UK in 1991 as the Director
of ‘molecules from Mars’, his term for natural products chemistry since the laboratory opened in 1916, he Georgina Ferry, Feb 7, 2020. of the Royal Institution of Great Britain where he was
whose biosynthesis was baffling. transformed his discipline at Oxford, in terms of both the Fullerian Professor of Chemistry. He retired from
scientific ambition and equipment. Baldwin brought the Royal Institution in 1998 and in the years since
Baldwin’s interest in rings led him to study antibiotics with him researchers from his internationally diverse 2008 was Emeritus Professor of Chemistry at the
that contain a -lactam ring, the best known of which lab at MIT, and continued to recruit people with a wide P University of London.
is penicillin. He worked initially with Edward Abraham, range of backgrounds. rofessor
who had been part of the team that developed Day received numerous awards from learned societies
penicillin and who went on to reveal the activity of Many of his students, who knew him as ‘J.E.B.’, went Peter Day FRS around the world; in 2008 The Royal Society of
broad-spectrum antibiotics known as cephalosporins. on to lead research all over the world. The output of (1938 – 2020) Chemistry honoured him by inaugurating the Peter
Baldwin uncovered the mechanistic basis of the his lab was prodigious: he is an author on at least 700 Day award in Materials Chemistry, reflecting his
enzyme action that catalyses the formation of the two papers. In 1988, he became the founding director of The Department was sad to announce the death championing of this discipline.
rings at the heart of the penicillin molecule. Others the Oxford Centre for Molecular Sciences, which he of Professor Peter Day FRS. Professor Day’s major In retirement, Day and his wife Frances divided their
have since found that related enzymes are involved in headed for 10 years. The centre helped to link physical contributions included systematising and rationalising time between Oxford and their home in Roussillon in
many biological processes, including how the human and biological sciences in Oxford. the properties of inorganic mixed-valence compounds south-west France. In 2012 he published a memoir
body responds to low levels of oxygen. (The Robin-Day
AI designs organic syntheses classification), and in the On the Cucumber Tree, full of fascinating anecdotes
Baldwin was born in London, and studied chemistry The pioneering role of Oxford scientists in the synthesis of numerous about his life and career. He died at his home in Marsh
Baldon in Oxfordshire on 19 May 2020 at the age
at Imperial College London, where he also did a PhD. extraction, testing and structural analysis of penicillin and diverse complex of 81 and is survived by his two children, Alison and
He was supervised by Derek Barton, a pioneer of during the 1940s inspired Baldwin’s extensive solids in the search for Christopher, and five grandchildren. He will be sadly
conformational analysis — the idea that the reactivity work on trying to make the drug from scratch. His unusual magnetic and missed by many around the world.
of a molecule could predict its preferred 3D shape respect for the optimally efficient process by which electronic materials
— who later won a Nobel prize. Barton had a major microbes produce the molecule — even now, most properties.
impact on Baldwin’s career. penicillin antibiotics continue to be produced through
Professor Peter Day FRS.

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