Zhou Qilin: "catalyze" the material of the beam with the beauty of chemistry

In the office of Zhou Qilin, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a professor at the School of Chemistry of Nankai University, there are hundreds of portfolios. This is a student experiment report that he has carefully kept. Look at each report at will, which is densely and carefully revised ... Zhou Qilin said, this is his treasure!

 

In the 1970s, as the second group of college students to resume the college entrance examination, Zhou Qilin stepped into the door of the chemical world. After obtaining a doctorate from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, he went to Germany, Switzerland, and the United States to conduct postdoctoral research. In 1999, Zhou Qilin taught at Nankai University. "This school's rigorous study style and heavy culture provide the best research environment for researchers." This is Zhou Qilin's personal experience.

 

Zhou Qilin's research group is mainly engaged in metal-catalyzed organic synthesis reactions, asymmetric catalysis, and chiral drug synthesis. After concentrating on the "bench bench for ten years cold", he designed and developed a new type of chiral spiral ring skeleton structure, and from this kind of skeleton structure, synthesized hundreds of series of chiral spiral ring ligands. And catalyst. These "Zhou catalysts", which are known by domestic and foreign colleagues, have high catalytic efficiency and selectivity, and have become an indispensable tool in synthetic chemistry. They have been used by more than 40 research groups around the world and have been used by many Pharmaceutical companies are used for the production of chiral drugs. Because of his outstanding contributions in the research of synthetic chemistry, Zhou Qilin won the first Chiral Chemistry Award of the Chinese Chemical Society in 2012, and in 2018 he won the 3rd Future Science Award-"Material Science Award".

 

On January 17, this year, when General Secretary Xi Jinping visited Nankai University, he asked with interest in Zhou Qilin's laboratory about the use of chiral catalysts. Zhou Qilin raised his left and right hands and vividly introduced General Secretary Xi Jinping's concept of "chirality" and the widespread application of chirality catalysts in medicine and other aspects. Hearing that General Secretary Xi Jinping encouraged the teachers and students present to accelerate the construction of first-class universities and disciplines, strengthen basic research, and strive for more results in original innovation and independent innovation, Zhou Qilin advised General Secretary Xi Jinping that he hopes the country will continue to attach great importance Strongly support basic research and increase investment in basic research.

 

Despite his extraordinary achievements in scientific research, Zhou Qilin always believes that his most important identity is a teacher, teaching and educating people is the first responsibility, and "research" is only the carrier of "educating people." He is more willing to lead students in the molecular world and experience the beauty of chemistry. "Chemistry is a very fascinating discipline that can create things that the world did not have-the most important thing I do is to open the door for students to create the world." Zhou Qilin said.

 

At Nankai University, almost everyone knows that Academician Zhou Qilin's research group is open to students of the school. No matter undergraduate, master or doctoral, as long as he is interested in his research direction, he can experience it in his laboratory. Zhou Qilin said that whoever is willing to learn chemistry, he is willing to "spend a little time and energy" on it.

 

Since coaching Nankai, Zhou Qilin has taught undergraduate and graduate "Frontiers of Contemporary Chemistry" courses. This is the first professional course that freshmen of the chemistry school will encounter after entering the school. Students need to roughly understand the frontier topics of chemistry through large class teaching, and then determine their "points of interest" from the directions of energy, environment, catalysis, and materials. Zhou Qilin said, "I hope that college students will have access to scientific research topics in the first grade and stimulate their creative desire."