Academy Members

Balenović Krešimir, F.C.A.

Academic titles:

• Fellow of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• Doctor of Science

Institutions:

• full professor, retired – Faculty of Science University of Zagreb
• corresponding member – Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Membership in Academy:

• full member – Department of Mathematical, Physical and Chemical Sciences (06/06/1975 – 02/25/2003)
• extraordinary member – Department of Mathematical, Physical and Chemical Sciences (03/12/1958 – 06/06/1975)

Krešimir Balenović, F.C.A., a Croatian organic chemist, was born in Zagreb on May 17, 1914. He finished high school in Zagreb, where he graduated (1937) and received his PhD with the thesis Contribution to the Knowledge of Acids (1939) at the Department of Chemistry at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University. From 1939 he was an assistant at the same Department, and from 1945 he was an associate professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy and from 1946 at the Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, where in 1945 he was elected associate professor, and in 1952 as a full professor.  From 1946 to 1970 he was head of the Department of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (until 1958. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, until 1961. Department of Chemistry) and Dean of the same Faculty (1958-1959). He has worked successfully with ”Chromos”, ”Pliva” and others. For many years he collaborated with the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb and from 1954 to 1958.  participates in the construction and establishment of scientific laboratories for organic chemistry and biochemistry of the Institute. After retiring, he managed the Center for Chemistry of Organic Natural Compounds of Yugoslavia (since 1991. Croatian) Academy of Sciences and Arts.

As a prominent researcher, Balenović gained an international reputation, especially with his works on stereochemistry and chemistry of β-amino acids, synthesis of sulforafen antibiotics and polyketone chemistry. The results of his research have been cited in many manuals and textbooks. He belongs to the circle of chemists who, as students and continuations of the work of nobel laureate V. Prelog, moved chemical research in Croatia towards organic chemistry and chemistry of living beings. He was a member of the Croatian, English, American and Dutch chemical society, and a member of the editorial board of the journal Tetrahedron. He was among the initiators to change the name of the journal Archives of Chemistry to Croatica Chemica Acta.

He was elected as an extraordinary member of JAZU (today Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts) in 1958, and a full member in 1975. As. In 1949, he received the Federal Prize and the Order of Labor of the Second Order.