[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 81 (Wednesday, May 28, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E849]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      HONORING DR. EI-ICHI NEGISHI

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TODD ROKITA

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 28, 2014

  Mr. ROKITA. Mr. Speaker, rise today to honor the accomplishments of 
Nobel laureate Dr. Ei-ichi Negishi, the Herbert C. Brown Distinguished 
Professor and Teijin Limited Director of the Negishi-Brown Institute at 
Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. Dr. Negishi has been 
elected into the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest 
honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States.
  Dr. Negishi was elected to the academy in recognition of his 
distinguished and continuing achievements in original, pioneering 
research. Negishi won the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his 
palladium-catalyzed cross coupling technique to link carbon atoms and 
synthesize molecules. In addition to its use in the development of 
painkillers and cancer treatments, it is estimated that ``Negishi 
coupling'' is used in more than one-quarter of all chemical reactions 
in the pharmaceutical industry. The technique also has been used in 
fluorescent marking essential for DNA sequencing and in the creation of 
materials for thin LED displays.
  Dr. Negishi currently serves as the inaugural director of Purdue's 
Negishi-Brown Institute, which supports basic research in catalytic 
organometallic (the study of compounds with bonds between Carbon and a 
metal) chemistry through graduate and postdoctoral fellowships, regular 
workshops and symposia, and relationships with industrial partners.
  Dr. Negishi grew up in Japan and received a bachelor's degree in 
organic chemistry from the University of Tokyo in 1958. He moved to the 
United States in 1960 to attend graduate school at the University of 
Pennsylvania as a Fulbright-Smith-Mundt scholar, earning a doctorate in 
organic chemistry in 1963. Negishi came to Purdue in 1966 as a 
postdoctoral researcher under Dr. Herbert Brown, who won the Nobel 
Prize in 1979. Negishi went to Syracuse University in 1972, where he 
was an assistant professor and then an associate professor before 
returning to Purdue in 1979.
  He was appointed the H.C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry 
in 1999 and has won various awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, 
the A.R. Day Award, a 1996 Chemical Society of Japan Award, the 1998 
American Chemical Society Organometallic Chemistry Award, a 1998 
Humboldt Senior Researcher Award and the 2010 American Chemical Society 
Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry. He also was 
given the 2010 Order of Culture, Japan's highest distinction, and named 
as a Person of Cultural Merit. Negishi has authored more than 400 
publications including two books, one of which is the Handbook of 
Organopalladium Chemistry for Organic Synthesis. Collectively, these 
publications have been cited more than 20,000 times.
  His current research focuses on understanding metal-catalyzed organic 
reactions with possible applications in health and energy-related 
fields.
  In light of this career accomplishment, I ask the 4th District and 
all Hoosiers to join me in congratulating Dr. Negishi for this great 
honor and achievement.

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