Guy Bertrand (chemist)

Guy Bertrand is a chemistry professor at the University of California, San Diego.

Bertrand obtained his B.Sc. from the University of Montpellier in 1975 and his Ph.D. from the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, in 1979. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Sanofi Research, France, in 1981.

The research interests of Bertrand and his co-workers lie mainly in the chemistry of with main group elements from group 13 to 16, at the border between organic, organometallic and inorganic chemistry; especially their use in stabilizing carbenes, nitrenes, radicals and biradicals, 1,3-dipoles, anti-aromatic heterocycles, and more. He has directed the synthesis of some original persistent carbenes, including bis(diisopropylamino)cyclopropenylidene, the first example of a carbene with all-carbon environment that is stable at room-temperature.

Guy Bertrand is an honorific member or fellow of several scientific societies, such as the AAAS (2006), the French Academy of Sciences (2004), the European Academy of Sciences (2003), Academia Europaea (2002), and the recipient of various prizes and awards.

Selected publications

• (2002) Singlet diradicals: from transition states to crystalline compounds. Science, volume 295, pages 1880-1881.
• (2005) Stable Cyclic (Alkyl)(Amino)Carbenes as Rigid or Flexible, Bulky, Electron-Rich Ligands for Transition Metal Catalysts: a Quaternary Carbon makes the difference. Angewandte Chemie Int. Ed., volume 44, pages 5705-5709.
• (2007) Facile Splitting of Hydrogen and Ammonia by Nucleophilic Activation at a Single Carbon Center. Science, volume 316, pages 439-441
• (2009) Isolation of a C5-Deprotonated Imidazolium, a Crystalline "Abnormal" N-Heterocyclic Carbene. Science, volume 326. issue 5952, pp. 556–559
• Olivier Back, Glenn Kuchenbeiser, Bruno Donnadieu, Guy Bertrand (2009), Non-Metal Mediated Fragmentation of P4. Isolation of P1 and P2 Bis-Carbene Adducts. Angewandte Chemie, volume 48 issue 30, pages 5530-5533.