Professor Andre ´Collet, the noted French stereochemist, died on 26 October 1999 at the early age of 54. Our journal Chirality and the International Scientific Committee of the International Symposia on Chiral Discrimination send our condolences to Madame Josiane Collet, his family and his scientific colleagues in Lyon.
Andre ´Collet was born on 31 July 1945 and was a student at the Universite ´de Paris VI. He began his research career in 1968 at the Colle ge de France in Paris, under the supervision of Jean Jacques. He completed his thesis in 1973, on the synthesis of prostaglandin analogues, and then spent two years at the ETH in Zurich with J.F.M. Oth, where his interest in physical organic chemistry developed. In 1975, he returned to the Colle ge de France to work on molecular recognition in the laboratory of Jean-Marie Lehn, being named "Maître de Recherche du CNRS" in 1984. He joined the newly formed E ´cole normale supe ´rieure de Lyon in 1988, taking up the post of Professor of Chemistry there and at the Universite ´Claud Bernard-Lyon 1. He rapidly built up a group of more than 25, working on various aspects of stereochemistry, physical organic chemistry and supramolecular chemistry.
Andre ´Collet's contributions are to be found in his more than 160 research papers. His 1981 book "Enantiomers, Racemates and Resolutions" made a particular impact with its definitions of rules governing the resolution of racemates by crystallisation. His work on the class of clathrates termed "cryptophanes" enabled the first resolution of CHFCIBr. These and other studies resulted in ward of a number of prizes from the Division of Organic Chemistry of the French Chemical Society, the E ´cole normale supe ´rieur e de Lyon and the Prix Jecker of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1997, he was appointed a "Chevalier dans l'Ordre National du Me ´rite." Andre ´Collet was a member of numerous national and international scientific committees and has served this journal with distinction as a long-serving member of the Editorial Board.
This brief summary highlights some of the achievement of Andre ´Collet, it does not convey the esteem and affection in which he was held by the international scientific community. A distinguished scientist, he was characterised by his enthusiasm, good humour and a lack of self-importance, features which combined to make him one of the best appreciated of colleagues.
Andre ´Collet was a member of the International Scientific Committee of the International Symposia on Chiral Discrimination and was the acclaimed choice as the Chairman of the 12th Symposium in this series, to be held in Chamonix in September 2000. Although, sadly, he will not be with us, his spirit will be alive in the quality of the programme, his own choice of the venue and, most of all, in the excellence of the science at the symposium.
We all mourn the passing of an outstanding scientist at an early age and at the height of his powers. The field is better for his work and the poorer upon his departure.