Ei-ichi Negishi has dreamed of winning the Nobel Prize. He had to keep messy lab notebooks to get a chance.

Negishi, the Herbert C. Brown distinguished professor of organic chemistry, sat in his office in Wetherill Laboratory of Chemistry looking at the Nobel Prize nomination form. A form that holds the history between organic chemistry pioneer Herbert Brown, who won the Nobel Prize in 1979, and Negishi. A form that Negishi himself used to nominate two scientists. Now, they are Nobel laureates.

A title he himself has yet to achieve. But he can still dream.

"Dream? Yes," said Negishi. "But I have always told myself, and my wife, that we have to be realistic."

He came to Purdue in 1966 to work for Brown. Negishi was asked to bring Brown his lab notebooks. They were kept in a besheveled manner. Brown promptly showed Negishi his own notebooks, kept in the style of a diary with descriptive details of research results.

This criticism formed the one-on-one relationship that led to Brown's nomination of Negishi for the Nobel Prize. Their relationship offered Negishi an irreplaceable education before Brown, Purdue's only Nobel laureate, died in 2004. But today, Negishi is motivated by his own prize - the satisfaction of accomplishment.

"I always say that no one should ever work for winning something," said Negishi. "I don't think that is the right approach but when you think that you are exploring some potentially significant discovery. You get excited, just for that reason."

Negishi is still advancing Brown's research 40 years later. Brown's discovery with boron won him a Nobel Prize, and now Negishi is seeing the effects of how boron has revolutionized hydrogen energy, which may affect how countless people live and maybe win Negishi a Nobel.

However, the real award Negishi is waiting for isn't a medal. It is being in a college chemistry textbook, or even better, a high school textbook.

Brown always told his students, said Negishi, if what they do goes into a general chemistry textbook that it is a major accomplishment. And Negishi knows, as he teaches CHM 111, "General Chemistry."

"I find it fascinating to look at chemistry at the ground level. The most important work should be based on the most basic parts."

Negishi has also worked with P. V. Ramachandran, an associate professor of chemistry. Ramachandran realizes the importance of the Nobel Prize as one "motivating factor," but the research and Brown himself are what drives him.

"I think about (Brown's impact) every day when I walk into my office and the lab," said Ramachandran. "I see the sign with Herbert C. Brown Laboratory for Boron Research, so it is always a motivating factor."

Ramachandran said that Negishi is a potential Nobel laureate and he agrees with his opinion of the prize.

"You don't do research saying, 'I want to win the Nobel Prize,'" he said. "You do the research and enjoy the