snap together with~

社会が混迷の度を深め，暗い雰囲気がおおっているこんなときだからこそ，心から祝福したいものです。北海道大学もそうですが，co-recipientのPurdue Univもホームページで大々的にその偉業を伝えています。有機化合物の合成法といわれてもピンとはきませんが，ここにあるLEGO　ブロックのなぞりはわかりやすく，この先生の教育的な力量が透けて見えます。なお，ノーベル財団のHPにはご本人への英語インタビューものっています。祝！（UG）
Purdue professor wins Nobel Prize in chemistry
October 6, 2010

Purdue President France A. Córdova, at left, talks Wednesday (Oct. 6) with Purdue University professor Ei-ichi Negishi, Nobel Laureate in chemistry, at his home in West Lafayette, Ind. Negishi is the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. (Purdue University photo/Andrew Hancock)
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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University chemist on Wednesday (Oct. 6) was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for creating a method to build complex organic molecules necessary for numerous purposes, from pharmaceutical manufacturing to electronics.
Ei-ichi Negishi (pronounced "H. Na-gE-shE"), the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, was a co-recipient of the prize with scientists Richard Heck of the University of Delaware in Newark and Akira Suzuki of Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. They will share the $1.5 million award.
Purdue President France A. Córdova said the university was proud that Negishi and his work were recognized by the Nobel Prize committee.
"Ei-ichi Negishi's work in organic molecules is groundbreaking and inspiring, especially in its application for improving medicines and impacting lives," Córdova said. "We are very proud that he has been bestowed with this highest honor. We congratulate professor Negishi and celebrate this great accomplishment."
Negishi developed metal-based reactions, called palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling, that allow for easy and efficient synthesis of complex organic compounds. Examples of applications include drug manufacturing, fluorescent marking that has been essential for DNA sequencing and creating materials for thin LED displays.
He discovered catalytic reactions using a number of transition metals that allow various organic compounds to be synthesized widely, efficiently and selectively for use in fields ranging from medicine to materials development. His work has resulted in dramatically reducing the cost of using such metals, like palladium, in the synthesis.
"Catalysts are not lost as they spur a chemical reaction, they are recycled and can be used over and over again," he said. "These transition metals are very expensive, but when they can be used millions to billions of times, it dramatically reduces the cost and makes the mass manufacturing of special, complex materials practical."
Negishi likened the innovation to playing with a LEGO game, altering the building blocks of molecules and using transition metals as catalysts to promote the reactions needed for the synthesis.
"We found catalysts and created reactions that allow complex organic compounds to, in effect, snap together with other compounds to more economically and efficiently build desired materials," he said. "LEGOs can be combined to make things of any shape, size and color, and our reactions make this a possibility for organic compounds." 
The National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, has supported Negishi's work since 1979.
"This methodology has vastly improved the possibilities to create sophisticated chemicals and has broad implications for the medical, electronic and agricultural fields," said NIH director Francis S. Collins. "It has already allowed chemists to synthesize compounds to fight the herpes virus, HIV and colon cancer."
http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2010/101006NegishiNobel.html