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Robert Burns Woodward
1917–1979 · United States · 20th century
Nobel Chemistry 1965
Master of total synthesis (quinine, strychnine, chlorophyll, vitamin B12) and co-author of the Woodward–Hoffmann rules.
Nobel Prize work
Woodward completed a sequence of total syntheses of complex natural products — quinine (1944), strychnine (1954), chlorophyll (1960) and many others — each raising the standard of ambition and control in synthesis. His work showed that rational design, guided by theory and mechanistic reasoning, could build molecules of almost any complexity. The prize honored his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis.