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Ei-ichi Negishi
Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor—Organic Chemistry
Email: negishi@purdue.edu
Phone: 765-494-5301
Office: WTHR 465B
For Professor Negishi's individual Home Page click here.
A large number of organic reactions including biochemical processes are promoted by catalysts. Besides traditional Lewis acids and bases and biochemical catalysts, i.e., enzymes, transition metals and their complexes represent one of the most important groups of catalysts.
Our research is mainly directed toward (i) discovery and development of transition metal-catalyzed organic reactions, (ii) their application to those organic transformations which are of interest in the health- and energy-related areas, and (iii) development of polymer and materials chemistry based on organotransition metal chemistry.
Several specific examples described below are representative of our recent research.
Exploration, development, and application of organozirconium chemistry.
Our discovery and development of the Zr-catalyzed carboalumination and the Pd-catalyzed cross coupling provided a highly stereoselective synthesis of vitamin A (Equation 1).
The Zr-promoted bicylization reaction we have discovered and developed (Equation 2).
Our current efforts are focused on the development of catalytic and/or asymmetric reactions involving Zr (Equation 3).
Exploration, development, and application of organopalladium chemistry.
In addition to Pd-catalyzed cross coupling, and acylpalladation we earlier developed, we have recently developed a Azipper@-mode cascade carbopalladation which promises to be a powerful tool for cyclization (Equation 4) and preparation of oligo- and polyacetylenes as candidates for conductive polymers.
Education
B.S., 1958, University of Tokyo; Ph.D., 1963, University of Pennsylvania; Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant, 1966-1972.Recognitions
- ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry , 2010
- Yamada-Koga Prize , 2007
- Sigma Xi Award, Purdue University , 2003
- Sir Edward Frankland Prize Lectureship , 2000
- Alexander von Humboldt Senior Researcher Award, 1998-2000
- American Chemical Society Award for Organometallic Chemistry, 1998
- Herbert N. McCoy Award, 1998
- Chemical Society of Japan Award, 1997
- A. R. Day Award (ACS Philadelphia Section award), 1996
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 1987
- Assistant and Associate Professor, Syracuse University, 1972-1979
- Harrison Fellowship at University of Pennsylvania, 1962-63
- Fulbright-Smith-Mund Fellowship, 1960-61
Selected Publications
- Zhang L.;Huang, Z.;Chen, W. Z.;Negishi, E. I.;Fanwick, P. E.;Updegraff, J. B.;Protasiewicz, J. D.;Ren, T., Negishi coupling-expedient formation of biphenyls on the periphery of inorganic/organometallic diruthenium species . Organometallics 2007 , 26 , 6526-6528.
- Zeng X. Z.;Qian, M. X.;Hu, Q.;Negishi, E., Highly selective synthesis of (1E)-2-methyl-1,3-dienes by palladium-catalyzed trans-selective cross coupling of 1,1dibromo-1-alkenes with alkenylzinc reagents . Angew. Chem.-Int. Edit. 2004 , 43 , 2259-2263.
- Negishi E.;Tan, Z.;Liang, B.;Novak, T., An efficient and general route to reduced polypropionates via Zr-catalyzed asymmetric C-C bond formation . Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 2004 , 101 , 5782-5787.