Barton, Derek

Barton, Derek H(arold) R(ichard) (1918-1998), British chemist, born in Gravesend, Kent, and educated at the University of London. He shared the 1969 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with the Norwegian scientist Odd Hassel. The prize recognized their separate contributions to the field of organic chemistry in developing conformational analysis, which is the study of the properties of complex organic chemicals in terms of the three-dimensional orientation of the bonds between their atoms. Barton also developed a method for synthesizing the important hormone aldosterone