Elias James Corey

Facts

Elias James Corey

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Elias James Corey
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1990

Born: 12 July 1928, Methuen, MA, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Prize motivation: “for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis”

Prize share: 1/1

Work

Nature is full of organic substances—a varied number of chemical compounds that contain the element carbon. At the end of the 1950s, E. J. Corey began developing a new approach to producing, or synthesizing, organic substances. The desired molecule was analyzed and viewed as a combination of smaller components united by essential bonds. The analysis was repeated until known and available molecules were obtained. From these, the desired molecule could then be assembled in several steps through chemical reactions.

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