Trio share Nobel for palladium-catalysed cross-coupling

The 2010 Nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to three pioneers of synthetic organic chemistry whose eponymous reactions have become ubiquitous and indispensible.

Richard Heck of the University of Delaware in Newark, US, Ei-ichi Negishi of Purdue University, US, and Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University in Japan, independently developed palladium-catalysed cross-coupling reactions as a way to forge new carbon-carbon bonds with precision and under mild reaction conditions. Heck, Negishi and Suzuki reactions are now used universally in every organic synthesis laboratory across the world, as well as in major industrial processes.  More...

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/October/06101002.asp