Supramolecular Chemistry ISSN: 1061-0278 (Print) 1029-0478 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gsch20 Special issue of Supramolecular Chemistry honouring Professor Rocco Ungaro Alessandro Casnati, Francesco Sansone & Laura Baldini To cite this article: Alessandro Casnati, Francesco Sansone & Laura Baldini (2013) Special issue of Supramolecular�Chemistry honouring Professor Rocco Ungaro, Supramolecular Chemistry, 25:9-11, 535-536, DOI: 10.1080/10610278.2013.841557 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10610278.2013.841557 Published online: 27 Sep 2013. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1542 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=gsch20 Supramolecular Chemistry, 2013 Vol. 25, Nos. 9 – 11, 535–536, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10610278.2013.841557 PREFACE Special issue of Supramolecular Chemistry honouring Professor Rocco Ungaro Alessandro Casnati, Francesco Sansone and Laura Baldini It is really a great pleasure and a privilege for us to introduce this special issue of Supramolecular Chemistry, which is dedicated to our esteemed mentor, Prof. Rocco Ungaro, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. We do believe that we reflect the feelings of all the enthusiastic contributors to this issue and also of all those who know and appreciate Rocco Ungaro, in expressing our sincere gratitude for his engaging passion in tackling new challenges, his ever optimistic and far-sighted overview of problems and his never-ending support and friendship. Ungaro has greatly contributed to the growth and diffusion of Supramolecular Chemistry not only in Italy, but also internationally. Indeed, from the very beginning of his career, Ungaro was fascinated and attracted by the potential that non-covalent interactions might have in the area of synthetic Organic Chemistry, Life-Sciences in general and applied technologies. Therefore, he decided to work in what is now appreciated as Supramolecular Chemistry thanks to the 1987 Nobel Prize being awarded to Charles J. Pedersen, Donald J. Cram and Jean-Marie Lehn. Ungaro was born in Anzi, a small village in southern Italy close to Potenza in 1943. He subsequently moved to Parma to study Chemistry at the University of Parma. He graduated in 1968, presenting a thesis on the isolation and characterisation of natural products under the guidance of Prof. Giuseppe Casnati. After a brief experience in an Italian pharmaceutical company, he moved back to Parma University as the winner of a research grant from ENI (National Energy Company) on the synthesis of new dyes. q 2013 Taylor & Francis The organic chemistry group here in Parma was actively studying, at that time, the role of solvent, ion pairs and supramolecular organisation on the regioselectivity of metal phenoxide reactions. In an effort to support these studies and become more versant in the field of Supramolecular Chemistry, in 1974 Ungaro decided to move to the State University of New York (SUNY) in Syracuse (NY) for a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Johannes Smid. At SUNY, Ungaro worked on crown ethers and ion pairs. Back in Parma, at the end of the 1970s, together with Professors Andrea Pochini and Giovanni Dario Andreetti, Rocco Ungaro started to study the products of the metaltemplate cyclic oligomerisation of phenol and formaldehyde under basic conditions. At that time, these products, renamed as ‘Calixarenes’, were receiving renewed attention thanks, in no small measure, also to pioneering efforts of C. David Gutsche. In 1979, the Parma team published the first X-ray crystal structure of a calixarene that unambiguously proved its cyclic structure and is one of the first reported examples of a synthetic receptor hosting a neutral molecule (toluene) within its cavity. This structure was particularly inspiring for Ungaro and Pochini as it helped them appreciate ‘the possibility of using these systems as potential clathrating agents for organic molecules and as “building blocks” for crown-ether type guest molecules’. Soon the Ungaro group was completely focused on the use of calixarenes as receptors for neutral molecules initially, and subsequently, for metal ions, anions and ion pairs. Starting from 1986, within the cadre of the European 536 Preface Economic Community and, therefore, long before the birth of the European Union, Ungaro was already active in promoting and participating in initiatives at a European level, many aimed at supporting collaborations and projects on calixarenes and Supramolecular Chemistry. First through Twinning Projects also involving Volker Böhmer, Luigi Mandolini, Anthony M. McKervey, David N. Reinhoudt and Javier de Mendoza, and subsequently via a series of EU-COST Actions, Ungaro started an extraordinarily fruitful collaboration with the Twente group which resulted in the publication of over 30 joint papers, some of which still remain among the most quoted papers on the functionalisation of calixarenes and their use as ion receptors. A collaboration with Luigi Mandolini’s group in Rome can also be traced back to this period of Ungaro’s life. Here, the goal was to study the application of calixarenes and their metal ion complexes as promoters of carboxylic and phosphoric ester bond cleavage. Gratifyingly, this collaboration resulted in a number of important publications. On the other hand, although it never resulted in joint papers, the true friendship and competition with Seiji Shinkai in Japan had a great influence on Ungaro’s research, particularly in the field of luminescent probes, calix[6]arene functionalisation and water-soluble receptors. Important collaborations from the groups of Giuseppe Arena and Domenico Sciotto are also to be acknowledged for this latter topic. Ungaro was also involved in a series of European Projects lasting almost 20 years with a formidable team of chemists consisting of Jean-Francois Dozol, George Wipff, Francoise Arnaud, Marie-Josè Schwing, D.N. Reinhoudt, V. Böhmer, A.M. McKervey and Javier de Mendoza. This team studied with huge success the problem of nuclear waste treatment and led to the development of extremely selective ionophores for caesium and strontium and rather efficient extractors of trivalent actinide and lanthanide cations. More recently, Ungaro’s interests have focused on the use of calixarene derivatives as receptors for molecules of biological interest and as multivalent ligands for biomacromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. This effort is paving the way to completely new applications of calixarenes. Ungaro’s work in the area of calixarenes and Supramolecular Chemistry was internationally recognised by allowing the Parma team to organise the 4th International Conference on Calixarenes (Parma 1997) and by the fact that he was selected to lead the NATO Advanced Research Workshop ‘Supramolecular Science: where we are, where we are going’ (Lerici 1998). Ungaro has served the Scientific Committees of the International Symposium on Supramolecular Chemistry and of the International Conference on Calixarenes. He is also the co-editor of two books, Calixarenes in Action and Supramolecular Science: Where It Is, Where It Is Going. In 2002, Ungaro was awarded the Research Prize for Organic Chemistry, and in 2009, he won the ‘Piero Pino Medal’, both from the Italian Chemical Society. He has been on the Editorial Board of Supramolecular Chemistry since its launch in 1992 and a frequent contributor to the journal. Ungaro is a co-author of over 260 papers in both international journals and books, and is a co-author of six international patents. Finally, we would like to thank Professors Jonathan L. Sessler and Phil Gale for giving us the opportunity to gather all the outstanding scientific contributions from some of Rocco’s many friends who make up this issue of Supramolecular Chemistry; each paper stands as a tribute to this wonderful man. We also thank Mrs Kateri Aragon, the Journal Secretary, for her continuous and competent help. We offer Prof. Ungaro our appreciation and gratitude for his tireless commitment, and our congratulations and very best wishes on this happy occasion.