Richard F. Heck

Richard Fred Heck ( born August 15, 1931 in Springfield, Massachusetts ) is an American chemist who became famous for the discovery of the Heck reaction. The reaction is the palladium-catalyzed linkage of aryl halides with alkenes and is one of the most important reactions for the formation of a carbon - carbon bond. The importance of the Heck reaction can also be concluded from the fact that in 2002, in Organic Reactions chapter for intramolecular Heck reaction consisted alone around 400 pages. In 2010 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki.

Academic Career

In 1952 his tail B. S. of the University of California, Los Angeles ( UCLA). There he stayed to graduate with Saul Winstein (1954). After that he went to Vladimir Prelog at the ETH Zurich. He also dealt with the solvolysis of cycloalkyl arylsulphonate. Back at UCLA, he deepened his study of neighboring group effects. Then came 1956, a job in the industry at Hercules Powder Co., Wilmington, Delaware. His research there led to the hydroformylation to a first proposal for the mechanism of transition-metal - catalyzed reaction.

In 1971, he found his way to the University of Delaware, where he continues dealt with the organopalladium chemistry. Here he discovered the now so important a Heck reaction. He laid the foundation for a whole class of palladium -catalyzed reactions, including the coupling with the boronic acid derivatives, the Suzuki coupling and the Sonogashira coupling, which is used to fluorescent dyes to DNA. Heck the first time characterized beyond the mechanism of alkene hydroformylation.

Heck went into retirement in 1989 and lives since 2011 in the Philippines, the homeland of his wife and is especially devoted to the cultivation of orchids.

Awards

He received the 2006 Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods. In addition, a chair was named in his honor in 2004. In 2010 he received together with Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Him the 2011 Glenn T. Seaborg Medal was awarded.

Publications

In addition to many articles published in scientific journals Heck the book Palladium reagents in organic syntheses.