Nobel Prize "for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis".
Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi, one of the most extensively cited synthetic organic chemists, is a Japanese chemist who has spent most of his career at Purdue University (USA).
He received the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by developing new methods for making carbon-carbon bonds, highly selectively, under relatively gentle conditions.
Chains of carbon atoms arranged in different ways, constitute the backbone of most of the small and large molecules that form and regulate living systems on Earth.
So, one of the greatest challenge to chemists has long been finding ways to make the chemical bonds between carbon atoms.
Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi has discovered new reactions, using palladium and other metals as catalysts, that allow uniting two molecules.
The result is the formation of a new single bond between them. These reactions have impressively improved both the potential and the efficiency of synthetic organic chemistry and contributed substantially to the building of complex molecules that make better many areas of our daily lives, from agriculture to medicine.
