Interview with Guy Bertrand

Guy Bertrand

Guy Bertrand studied chemistry at the School of Chemistry of Montpellier and received his PhD from the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. After being a CNRS group leader (French National Center for Scientific Research) at the University of Toulouse, and then at the Laboratoire de Chimie de Coordination du CNRS, he has been the Director of the Laboratoire d'Hétérochimie Fondamentale et Appliquée at the University Paul Sabatier from 1998 to 2005. From 2001 to 2012 he served as the Director of the UCR/CNRS Joint Research Chemistry Laboratory, and since July 2012 he is Distinguished Professor and Director of the UCSD/CNRS Joint Research Chemistry Laboratory at the University of California San Diego. He is a member of the French Academy of Technology (2000), the Academia Europaea (2002), the European Academy of Sciences (2003), the French Academy of Sciences (2004), and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (2006). He has recently received the Sir Ronald Nyholm Medal of the RSC (2009), the Grand Prix Le Bel of the French Chemical Society (2010), the Senior Humboldt Research Award, Re-invitation (2010), and the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry (2014). His most well known contribution is the discovery in 1988 of the first stable carbene, namely a (phosphino)(silyl)carbene A, three years prior to the report by Arduengo of a stable N-heterocyclic carbene. Bertrand is the originator of stable carbene chemistry. This was a truly striking discovery and was made long before anybody could imagine that stable carbenes would became ubiquitous ligands for transition-metal catalysts, or even organic catalysts in their own right. Since then, Guy Bertrand has made several ground breaking discoveries, which have furthered our understanding of the stability of carbenes, as exemplified by the isolation of cyclopropenylidene B, cyclo (alkyl)(amino)carbenes (CAACs) C, and mesoionic carbenes (MICs) D. Also of note is the preparation of the first stable carbo(dicarbene) or bent-allene E, nitrene F, and organoboron derivative G isoelectronic with amines.

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What excited you most about carbenes?

The role of scientists is to challenge rules which have been established by their predecessors, and in the 1980s I believed that if we could demonstrate that carbenes could be isolated, this would be a new paradigm. This was a research project for academia. Indeed, at that time, certainly nobody thought, including myself, that some twenty years later stable carbenes would find so many applications.

What is the greatest challenge you face in your research?

To find money to support fundamental research, which might possibly find applications… but only 25 years or so later.

What do you enjoy the most about the research and what do you dislike?

I can spend hours at the NMR or X-ray machine to be sure that we have really created the new chemical object we were dreaming of. This is fascinating. I also really like writing publications – finding the best way to put the results together to make a nice story. It is just like writing a novel. I really dislike doing administrative work.

What is your hobby? Is there any relationship between your hobbies and your research?

Golf is my hobby. This is a wonderful activity to spend time with your friends but also your colleagues. At almost all conferences I attend, all over the world, I play golf with chemists, and of course we talk about chemistry while hitting the balls.

What are your suggestions to the young generation to encourage them to consider a career in science?

A very simple but very important one: science and scientists are not boring! The time where our great predecessors were more or less isolated in their labs is over; nowadays, scientists work as a team. We travel all around the world, meet new friends at conferences, and what can be more exciting than to make a tiny contribution to improving the welfare of humanity.

What other career paths have you considered before becoming a scientist?

I wanted to be a professional tennis player, but unfortunately or fortunately I was better in science than on the court.

If you have published with Organic Chemistry Frontiers, what are your comments?

I have already published in Organic Chemistry Frontiers and will do it again. I have no doubt that the Chinese chemical community will make this journal “their journal”, and as a consequence the impact factor will climb rapidly. In other words, I think that, for my group, it is a good investment!

Publication highlights

Singlet carbenes as mimics for transition metals: synthesis of an air stable organic mixed valence compound [M₂(C₂)⁺˙; M = cyclic(alkyl)(amino)carbene], L. Jin, M. Melaimi, L. Liu, G. Bertrand, Org. Chem. Front., 2014, 1, 351–354, DOI:10.1039/C4QO00072B.

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