American Chemical Society honors Prof. Heck

3:51 p.m., Sept. 8, 2005--Richard F. Heck, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry and the namesake of chemistry’s “Heck reaction,” is the recipient of the American Chemical Society’s Herbert C. Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods.

Heck, retired in Florida, is mentioned in the Aug. 29 issue of Chemical & Engineering News.

Heck’s organometallic chemistry research laid the groundwork for processes used in modern organic synthesis. He served on the UD faculty from 1971-89 after a career as a researcher at Hercules.

By the mid-1990s, his name had become widely used shorthand among chemists. Almost every modern pharmaceutical synthesis depends on the Heck reaction.

Douglass F. Taber, the UD professor of chemistry and biochemistry who nominated Heck for the award, said, "Prof. Heck conceived and reduced to practice the idea of using a catalytic amount of a transition-metal complex to form a carbon-carbon bond. His work pointed the way not just to Heck coupling, but to all the derived reactions that bear the names of the scientists who developed them."

Last year, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry established the Richard F. Heck Lectureship in his honor, and he presented the inaugural lecture.

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