John Hartwig awarded 2019 Wolf Prize in Chemistry

John Hartwig

Henry Rapoport Professor in Organic Chemistry John Hartwig (Ph.D. ’90, Chem) and co-awardee Professor Stephen Buchwald from MIT have been named 2019 Wolf Laureates for the development of efficient transition-metal catalysts that have revolutionized drug manufacturing, leading to a breakthrough in molecule and synthetics design. 

Hartwig and Buchwald were also jointly awarded the Tetrahedron Prize for Creativity in Organic Chemistry in 2018 for their development of the Buchwald–Hartwig amination: a chemical reaction used for the synthesis of carbon-nitrogen bonds via the Palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions of amines with aryl halides. The process has gained wide use in the industrial preparation of numerous pharmaceuticals.

The Wolf Prize has been awarded since 1978 in the areas of agriculture, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, physics and the arts. The Wolf Prizes in Physics and Chemistry are often considered the most prestigious awards in those fields after the Nobel Prize. The laureates will attend an award ceremony and other events in Israel in May.