This award supports Dr. William C. Agosta of the Rockefeller University to collaborate with Dr. Paul Margaretha of the University of Hamburg. They have a mutual interest and complementary expertise in the chemistry of alkyl propargyl biradicals, and their joint work emphasizes novel mechanistic studies and new methods of forming these species. The small Rockefeller group is composed primarily of postdoctoral workers, and has expertise in general mechanistic organic photochemistry and the synthesis and characterization of small ring compounds. The larger Hamburg group offers expertise in quantitative measurement and the kinetics of radical reactions, electrochemistry and organofluorine chemistry. Because of a larger number of graduate students, it is better able to carry out studies requiring greater manpower. They have collaborated very productively for several years under NATO sponsorship. Under support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) they will collaborate in studies of the mechanism of hydrogen migration in carbene, the independent propagation of carbene 2, the photochemistry of ketone 15a and exploratory intramolecular reactions leading to alkyl propargyl biradicals. This cooperative arrangement will enhance Dr. Agosta's domestic research which is directed at understanding structural and stereochemical control factors in organic photochemical reaction mechanisms, and using controlled photochemical processes for the construction of novel organic ring systems of theoretical and structural interest.
