Samir Zard (born 1955) is a Lebanese-French

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

and the president of the department of chemistry at the

École polytechnique (, ; also known as Polytechnique or l'X ) is a ''grande école'' located in Palaiseau, France. It specializes in science and engineering and is a founding member of the Polytechnic Institute of Paris. The school was founded in 1794 by mat ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he also directs the department of organic chemistry and synthesis.

Biography

Samir Zard was born in Ife,

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

; he grew up in the suburbs of

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. Zard initially studied chemistry at the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...

, but in 1975 he was forced to emigrate due to the

Lebanese civil war The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...

. He completed his undergraduate education at

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

, receiving the highest mark among his graduating class, and followed Sir Derek Barton to

Université Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (), also known as the University of Paris — XI (or as the Orsay Faculty of Sciences, University of Paris before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, ...

for doctoral study. He defended his thesis in 1983 and subsequently started his research career at the

Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles The Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles ("Institute for the chemistry of natural substances"), or ICSN, is part of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France's most prominent public research organization. Located at Gif-s ...

Gif-sur-Yvette Gif-sur-Yvette (, "Gif-on- Yvette") is a commune in southwestern Île-de-France, France. It is located in the Vallée de Chevreuse, from the centre of Paris (at Notre-Dame), in the Essonne department on the departmental border with Yvelin ...

, at the time also directed by Barton. In 1986, he rejoined the organic chemistry department of the École polytechnique, where he has since worked.

Work

Zard and his group have made significant advances in the chemistry of natural products, including the extraction of the alkaloids Dendrobine and γ-lycorane. In 1990 he assisted Barton in developing the Barton–Zard synthesis, a useful route to pyrrole derivatives: An expert in radical chemistry, Zard and his group have notably worked on the

xanthate A xanthate is a Salt (chemistry), salt or ester of a xanthic acid. The formula of the salt of xanthic acid is (where R is organyl group and M is usually Sodium, Na or Potassium, K). Xanthate also refers to the anion . The formula of a xanthic a ...

s, and contributed to the development of the

reversible addition−fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization Reversible addition−fragmentation chain-transfer or RAFT polymerization is one of several kinds of reversible-deactivation radical polymerization. It makes use of a chain-transfer agent (CTA) in the form of a thiocarbonylthio compound (or sim ...

method. He currently serves on the editorial board of ''

Tetrahedron Letters ''Tetrahedron Letters'' is a weekly international journal for rapid publication of full original research papers in the field of organic chemistry. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2022 impact factor of 1.8 Indexing ...

''.

Awards and distinctions

* Birch Lecturer (2015) * Liversidge Lecturer (2015) * 1st Barton Lecturer in Creativity in Organic Synthesis (2012) * Grand Prix Achille Le Bel (2012) * Grignard-Wittig Award of the German Chemical Society (2008) * Innovation Award - École polytechnique (2008) *

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

(2007) * President, Bürgenstock Conference (2007) *

CNRS Silver Medal The CNRS Silver Medal is a scientific award given every year to about fifteen researchers by the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). It is awarded to a researcher for "the originality, quality and importance of their work, re ...

(2007) * Dargelos prize (2006) * Prix Rhodia (2000) * Clavel-Lespiau prize of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

(1995) * Prize of the

Société chimique de France Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A. Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...

(1992)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zard, Samir 20th-century French chemists 21st-century French chemists 1955 births Living people Alumni of Imperial College London American University of Beirut alumni French people of Lebanese descent Paris-Sud University alumni