Leo Paquette

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Leo Armand Paquette (July 15, 1934 – January 21, 2019)^[1] was an American organic chemist.

Biography[]

He was born on July 15, 1934 to parents Armand and Clarice with roots in Quebec (great-grandfather Edmund was born in Contrecoeur, Quebec^[2]) and he received his B.S. degree from Holy Cross College in 1956 and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1959 with Professor Norman Allan Nelson. After serving as a Research Associate at the Upjohn Company from 1959 to 1963, he joined the faculty of The Ohio State University. He was promoted to full professor in 1969 and was named Distinguished University Professor in 1987. Paquette was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1984, and was the founding editor of the Electronic Encyclopedia of Reagents for Organic Synthesis (e-EROS).^[3]

Scientific misconduct[]

In 1993, an Ohio State University investigation found that Paquette had plagiarized sections from an unfunded NIH grant application, for which he was a reviewer, and included the text in his own NIH grant application. The Office of Research Integrity agreed with the University investigation and "required institutional certification of proper attribution in any future grant proposals" from Paquette and "prohibited him from serving on Public Health Service Advisory Committees, Boards, or review groups" for ten years.^[4]

For a separate plagiarism incident that occurred in 1991, the Ohio State University investigatory panel found that Paquette had plagiarized a NSF proposal, that he was also a reviewer for, and included sections in a paper he published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The NSF's Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that Paquette knowingly "submitted falsified evidence for the purpose of disproving the misconduct in science charge" and made "false statements under oath in the OIG investigation concerning the authenticity of the evidence". The falsified evidence consisted of a computer disk that included a "'mock draft,' a copy of the paper's final draft that Paquette had marked up to look like an earlier draft" and was back-dated prior to Paquette's review of the NSF proposal and, importantly, prior to the manufacture of the disk. The US Secret Service also found that someone had attempted to erase the lot number of the disk. In 1998, the NSF entered into a binding settlement with Paquette: Paquette would voluntarily exclude himself from any federal funding for two years and the NSF would not "issue a finding of misconduct in science".^[5][6]

Honors[]

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Paquette’s honors include Sloan Fellow, Guggenheim Fellow, ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, and the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award of the ACS.

Legacy[]

Paquette is perhaps best known for achieving the first total synthesis of the Platonic solid dodecahedrane in 1982,^{[7][non-primary source needed]} which still stands as one of the landmark achievements in the history of organic synthesis and hydrocarbon chemistry.^{[according to whom?][citation needed]} As of this date,^[when?] Paquette had authored more than 1000 papers, 38 book chapters, and 17 books, and had guided approximately 150 graduate students to their Ph.D. degrees.

Books[]

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• Encyclopedia of reagents for organic synthesis, 2009
• Handbook of reagents for organic synthesis, 1999-2007
• Organic Reactions, Editor-In-Chief, Vols. 38-55
• Encyclopedia of reagents for organic synthesis, 1995
• Comprehensive Organic Synthesis: Combining C-C pi-bonds, 1992
• Polyquinane chemistry : syntheses and reactions, 1987
• Recent synthetic developments in polyquinane chemistry, 1984
• Organic chemistry, 1979
• Principles of modern heterocyclic chemistry, 1968

Further reading[]

• Nickon, Alex; Silversmith, Ernest F. (2013). Organic Chemistry: The Name Game: Modern Coined Terms and Their Origins. Amsterdam, NLD: Elsevier. pp. 7–10, 15, 54, 91, 202, 206, 251, 296f. ISBN 978-1483145235. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
• Paquette, Leo A.; Crouse, Gary D. (1981). "Stereocontrolled Preparation of Precursors to all Primary Prostaglandins from Butadiene". In D.H.R. Barton (ed.). R.B. Woodward Remembered: A Collection of Papers in Honour of Robert Burns Woodward 1917-1979 (Tetrahedron 37, Supplement 1). Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press. pp. 281–287. ISBN 978-1483286082. Retrieved 29 January 2016.
• Paquette, Leo A.; Orchin, Milton (1998). "Melvin Spencer Newman, March 10, 1908-May 30, 1993". Biographical Memoirs (Volume 73). Biographical Memoirs: A Series. Washington, DC, USA: National Academies Press. pp. 335–346. ISBN 978-0309591683. Retrieved 29 January 2016.

See also[]

• List of scientific misconduct incidents

References[]