Corwin Herman Hansch (October 6, 1918 – May 8, 2011) was a professor of chemistry at Pomona College in California. He became known as the 'father of computer-assisted molecule design.'

Education and career

Hansch was born on October 6, 1918, in Kenmare, North Dakota. He earned a BS from the University of Illinois in 1940 and a PhD from New York University in 1944. He briefly worked as a postdoc at the University of Illinois Chicago. Hansch worked on the Manhattan Project at the University of Chicago and as a group leader at DuPont Nemours in Richland, Washington. In February 1946 he received an academic position at Pomona College, where he taught until 1988. Hansch completed sabbaticals at ETH Zurich with Vladimir Prelog and at University of Munich with Rolf Huisgen. Hansch taught Organic Chemistry for many years at Pomona College, and was known for giving complex lectures without using notes. His course in Physical Bio-Organic Medicinal Chemistry was ground-breaking at an undergraduate level. Hansch may be best known as the father of the concept of quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR), the quantitative correlation of the physicochemical properties of molecules with their biological activities. He is also noted for the Hansch equation, which is used in Research Interests: Organic Chemistry; Interaction of organic chemicals with living organisms, Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships (QSAR).

Death

He died of pneumonia on May 8, 2011, in Claremont, California, at 92.