April 28, 2003 Public chemistry lecture features Nobel laureate Herbert C. Brown By Shawna Williams
Nobel laureate Herbert C. Brown will give the third annual Joseph F. Bunnett Research Organic Chemistry Lecture at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 2, in the University Center. Brown's talk, entitled "The Discovery and Exploration of a New Continent of Organic Chemistry," is free and open to the public. Herbert C. Brown shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with German chemist Georg Wittig of the University of Heidelberg. Photo courtesy Purdue University The R. B. Wetherill Research Professor Emeritus of chemistry at Purdue University, Brown is most famous for his pioneering work with boron compounds, which revolutionized synthetic organic chemistry.
While working for the Department of Defense during World War II, Brown found a way to make sodium borohydride. This compound opened a new path for making hydrogen gas, used in weather balloons during the war and in fuel cells today. This was the first of many important reactions made possible by boranes, compounds of boron and hydrogen.
Boranes, which Brown has called "possibly the most useful intermediates currently available," are now used in the synthesis of many organic compounds, including medications such as the antidepressant Prozac and the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor. | |
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