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Akira Suzuki
born 1930 · Japan · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 2010
Japanese chemist who created the palladium-catalysed cross-coupling that bears his name.
Nobel Prize work
He developed the Suzuki coupling, joining organoboron compounds with organic halides using a palladium catalyst under mild conditions, now a standard tool for building carbon–carbon bonds in drugs and materials.
Fields
Related topics
Homogeneous catalysis (Ziegler–Natta, Grubbs)
A homogeneous catalyst moves through a closed sequence of elementary steps in the same phase as the substrate. Small changes in ligands, oxidation state or vacant sites can redirect an entire cycle and change selectivity.
Total synthesis
Total synthesis constructs a complex natural or designed molecule from simple, defined starting materials, integrating route design, selectivity, mechanism, and practical execution.