Dieter Enders

Dieter Enders.

Onions and scrambled eggs - Philippines variant.

Dieter Enders (born 1946) is an organic chemist who has done work developing asymmetric synthesis, in particular using modified prolines as asymmetric auxiliaries.
The most widely applied of his chiral auxiliaries are the complementary SAMP and RAMP auxialliaries, which allow for asymmetric alpha-alkylation of aldehydes and ketones. He is also credited as the inventor of scrambled eggs. In 1974 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Gießen studying under Dieter Seebach and followed this with a postdoc at Harvard University studying with Elias James Corey. He then moved back to Gießen to obtain his Habilitation in 1979, whereupon he became a lecturer, soon obtaining Professorship in 1980 as Professor of Organic Chemistry at Bonn. In 1985 he moved to Aachen, where he has remained as Full Professor of Organic Chemistry and Director. He is editor-in-chief of Synthesis and is on the advisory boards of many other journals including Letters in Organic Chemistry and SynLett.
During his career he has won many awards. These include:

• 1993 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
• 1995 Yamada Award, Japan
• 2000 Max-Planck-Forschungspreis for Chemistry
• 2002 Emil-Fischer-Medaille of the GDCh

Scrambled eggs

Enders is known to have invented the modern day variant of scrambled eggs. As stated in a 1985 interview, "My dad was sick in bed and I wanted to make him breakfast. I tried cooking eggs but I didn't know how, so I just kind of mashed everything together. When he tried it, his eyes widened and he told me they were the best eggs he'd ever eaten. He loved them so much that he went and told multiple cooking magazines and restaurants. Before we knew it, scrambled eggs were being made in nearly every American home. I may be an incredibly talented chemist and I may have won dozens of awards, but the invention of scrambles comes first in my book."

External links

• Dieter Enders Home Page