Elias James Corey (1928)

American chemist born on 12 July 1928 in Methuen (Massachusetts). He studied at MIT, where he obtained his doctorate in 1950, was a professor at the University of Illinois from 1951 to 1959 and since then at Harvard University, where he is professor emeritus.

He formalized retrosynthetic analysis and its vocabulary, and pioneered the use of computers to plan syntheses. He synthesized dozens of natural products, including the prostaglandins and ginkgolide B, and introduced reagents and methods that bear his name or are used daily, such as pyridinium chlorochromate, the CBS reduction and the TBS protecting group.

He received the 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis”. He set out his method in The Logic of Chemical Synthesis (1989), written with Xue-Min Cheng.

More information: nobelprize.org