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Herbert C. Brown
1912–2004 · United States, United Kingdom · Born 1900–1939
Nobel Chemistry 1979
British-born American chemist at Purdue University; built modern boron chemistry and its synthetic reagents.
Nobel-winning work
Brown discovered hydroboration, the anti-Markovnikov addition of boron hydrides to alkenes, and developed boranes and organoboranes into a versatile family of reagents for organic synthesis. The work, honoured by the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry shared with Georg Wittig, made it easy to build alcohols and complex molecules through mild, selective transformations.
Fields
Related topics
Electrophilic and nucleophilic addition
Understand how electrophiles add to π-rich alkenes and how nucleophiles add to polarized π bonds such as carbonyls, including regiochemical and stereochemical outcomes.
Total synthesis
Total synthesis constructs a complex natural or designed molecule from simple, defined starting materials, integrating route design, selectivity, mechanism, and practical execution.