Rolf Huisgen

Who is Rolf Huisgen?

Rolf Huisgen is a German chemist. He was born in Gerolstein in the Rhineland-Palatinate and studied in Munich under the supervision of Heinrich Otto Wieland. After completing his Ph.D. in 1943 and his habilitation in 1947, he was named professor at the University of Tübingen in 1949. He returned to the University of Munich in 1952 where he remained dedicated to research long after attaining emeritus status in 1988.

One of his major achievements was the development of the 1,3-Dipolar cycloaddition reaction, also known as the Huisgen cycloaddition or Huisgen reaction. The Huisgen reaction is of paramount importance to the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds. His importance in synthetic organic chemistry, however, extends to the enormous influence he had in post-war chemistry departments in Germany and Austria, due to the large number of his "habilitants" becoming professors. Ivar Karl Ugi, Johann Mulzer, Bernd Giese, Johann Gasteiger, Herbert Mayr, Hans-Ulrich Reissig, Jürgen Sauer and Reinhard Brückner are but a few of them.