Chemistry Nobel Laureate Richard F. Heck died Oct. 9 in Manila, the Philippines. He was 84.
Heck shared the 2010 Prize with Purdue University’s Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University for developing palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. These reactions are widely used in organic synthesis to make a wide variety of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals and materials.
The cross-coupling chemistry that bears Heck’s name stems from pioneering work he carried out in the 1960s and ’70s while he was a research chemist at Hercules Powder. He discovered that palladium could catalyze carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions that couple aromatic rings and alkenes.
“The breadth of Heck’s contributions to science was truly staggering and extends far beyond the Heck reaction,” says University of Delaware chemistry professor Joseph M. Fox. Heck was a chemistry professor at Delaware from 1971 to 1989. Fox explains that Heck was the first person to characterize a π-allyl metal complex and among the first to elucidate the mechanism of any transition-metal-catalyzed process.
Pennsylvania State University, Schuylkill, chemistry professor Lee J. Silverberg, who was Heck’s last graduate student, says Heck “was one of the nicest people I ever met. He was a kind and very humble man.”