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Su. Chem Synth 2023;3:46 Chemical Synthesis
DOI: 10.20517/cs.2023.62

Editorial Open Access

Prof. Alain Krief, a brilliant scientist, a passionate

chemist and a fantastic chemist trainer

Bao-Lian Su 1,2
1
Laboratory of Inorganic Materials Chemistry, University of Namur, Namur B-5000, Belgium.
2
State Key Laboratory of Advanced technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan 430070, Hubei, China.
Correspondence to: Prof. Bao-Lian Su, Laboratory of Inorganic Materials Chemistry, University of Namur, Rue de Bruxelles 61,
Namur B-5000, Belgium. E-mail: bao-lian.su@unamur.be

How to cite this article: Su BL. Prof. Alain Krief, a brilliant scientist, a passionate chemist and a fantastic chemist trainer. Chem
Synth 2023;3:46. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/cs.2023.62

Received: 5 Dec 2023 Accepted: 6 Dec 2023 Published: 6 Dec 2023

Academic Editor: Ying Wan Copy Editor: Pei-Yun Wang Production Editor: Pei-Yun Wang

It is my immense pleasure to lead this Special Issue in honor of Professor Alain Krief on the occasion of his
80th birthday. I would like to express my admiration for him and extend my heartfelt congratulations on
the successful publication of Volume 3, Issue 4 of the Journal of Chemical Synthesis (CS).

Prof. Alain Krief was born in Tunis on 13th December 1942. He completed his Ph.D. in 1970 under the
supervision of Prof. Jacqueline Ficini on cycloaddition of ynamines at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie
in Paris, France. While working as a CNRS Research Associate (1968-1972), he made a ten-month
postdoctoral stay at the laboratory of Prof. Elias J. Corey (Nobel Laureate, 1990) at Harvard University on
sterol biosynthesis in 1970 (Prof. Krief contributed a research paper to this Special Issue on Sterol
biosynthesis with a research highlight from double Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Prof. K. B. Sharpless). In
1972, he was appointed as “Chargé de Cours” to head the newly established Laboratory of Organic
Chemistry in Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (now University of Namur), Belgium, a
position he held until 1997. Subsequently, he became the Director of the Laboratoire de Chimie Organique
de Synthèse (1997-2008). Notably, he was exceptionally promoted to a full professor in 1975 at the
remarkable age of 33. Currently, Prof. Krief holds the status of an emeritus professor at the University of
Namur (Belgium). Additionally, he serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Karachi (HEJ
Research Institute, Pakistan) and a UNESCO research fellow at iThemba-Lab in Cape Town (South Africa).

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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