Martin Banwell

Professor Martin G. Banwell FAA, FRACI, Hon.FRSNZ (born 1954-11-24) is an Organic Chemist specialising in biotransformations and natural product synthesis. He received a BSc at Victoria University of Wellington in 1976, and an Honours, 1st Class from the same institution in 1977; his doctorate in 1979 is also from Victoria University, under the direction of Professor B. Halton.

Banwell then relocated to Ohio State University between 1979-1980 to undertake a postdoctoral fellowship before taking on the role of Senior teaching Fellow at the Department of Organic Chemistry, University of Adelaide until 1981. Banwell then returned to New Zealand taking the role of Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Auckland until 1986, when he returned to Australia to take a similar role at the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Melbourne. In 1995 as an Associate Professor he moved to the Australian National University as a Senior Fellow. He was promoted to full professor in 1999. Banwell has also previously been a guest at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland. Currently Prof. Banwell is a Foreign Visiting Researcher at Hiroshima University, an Asia-Pacific Representative, Advisory Board to the International Society for Heterocyclic Chemistry , a Chemistry Consultant for CSIRO Molecular Science and Member, Australian Research Council College of Experts.

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Editorial boards

• Synlett
• Indian Journal of Chemistry, Section B
• Australian Journal of Chemistry
• Tetrahedron
• Tetrahedron Letters

Publications

To date Prof. Banwell has published 206 peer reviewed articles, 6 Patents, 1 Review and 1 Non-Refereed publication.

Research Interests

• Enzymatic preparation of Organic molecules as synthons or building blocks for complex natural products.
• Synthesis of complex marine natural products. Particular interest in Australian marine natural products from the Great Barrier Reef.

Fellowships and Awards

• Rennie Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute. (1986)
• Grimwade Prize in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Melbourne (1992)
• Elected Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute] (FRACI). (1992)
• Royal Society of Chemistry (U.K.) International Author Travel Grant Awardee. (1998)
• Tasmanian Alkaloid Lectureship of the University of Tasmania (1998)
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship. (1999)
• Humboldt Research Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. (2000)
• Elected Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 2002: Conference Chair, 2002 Southern Highlands Conference on Heterocyclic Chemistry. (2002)
• Royal Society of Chemistry (UK)
• Royal Award in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2003)
• Nanjing University of Science and Technology International Exchange and Co-operation Lecturer, Nanjing, China, 19-21 May, 2004. (2004)
• 2004 Boehringer-Ingelheim Lecturer of the Ohio State University, June 10, (2004).
• Elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. (2004)
• 2004-2005 Novartis Chemistry Lecturer (2004)
• Birch Medal of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (2004)
• 2005 Merck Lecturer (UK) (2005)

Representative Publications

• Austin, K. A. B., Banwell, M. G., Loong, D. T. J., Rae, A. D. and Willis, A. C. - A Chemoenzymatic Total Synthesis of the Undecenolide (-) Cladospolide B via a Mid-Stage Ring-Closing Metathesis and a Late-Stage Photo-Rearrangement of the E-Isomer. Org. Biomol. Chem., 3: pp. 1081-1088 (2005).
• Freeman, C., Liu, L., Banwell, M. G., Brown, K. J., Bezos, A., Ferro, V. and Parish, C. R. - Use of Sulfated Linked Cyclitols as Heparan Sulfate Mimetics to Probe the Heparin/Heparan Sulfate Binding Specificity of Proteins. J. Biol. Chem., 280: pp. 8842-8849 (2005).
• Banwell, M. G., Edwards, A. J., Lupton, D. W. and Whited, G. - Whole-Cell Biotransformation of m-Ethyltoluene into 1S,6R-5-Ethyl-1,6-dihydroxycyclohexa-2,4-diene-1-carboxylic Acid as an Approach to the C-Ring of the Binary Indole-Indoline Alkaloid Vinblastine. Aust. J. Chem., 58: pp. 14-17 (2005).
• Banwell, M. G. and Lupton, D. W. - Exploiting the Palladium[0]-Catalysed Ullmann Cross-Coupling Reaction in Natural Products Chemistry: Application to a Total Synthesis of the Alkaloid (±)-Aspidospermidine. Org. Biomol. Chem., 3: pp. 213-215 (2005).
• Banwell, M. G., Hungerford, N. L. and Jolliffe, K. A. - Synthesis of the Sialic Acid (^R) KDN and Certain Epimers from (-)-3-Dehydroshikimic Acid or (-)-Quinic Acid. Org. Lett., 6: pp. 2737-2740 (2004).

External references

• Official website for Prof. Barnwell at ANU.
• Banwell Group RSC homepage

References

• Article about Martin Banwell