In 2010, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to 3 individuals. One of the winners happens to be a professor from Purdue University.

Ei-Ichi Negishi is one of the three winners for the 2010 Nobel Prize. He won the award along with former University of Delaware Professor Richard Heck, and Japan’s Hokkaido University’s Akira Suzuki.

The three men came up with several ways to link carbon atoms together. The research and discoveries made by these professors were actually made back in the 1960′s and 1970′s. Today, we are able to create chains of carbon atoms in an efficient way because of the work done by these men. Their work allowed for advancements in technology that allows us to advance in pharmaceuticals, and find new coatings for electronic components.

The men used a precious metal called palladium to help catalyse reactions between carbon atoms. These reactions did not create any unwanted by-products like those previous known to man.

Purdue University Professor, Ei-Ichi Negishi recalled getting the good news, by saying, “It was around 5am here and I went to bed last night well past midnight. I was extremely happy to receive the call. I would be telling a lie if I wasn’t thinking about this. I began dreaming about this prize half a century ago, when I came to America and when I encountered several Nobel laureates coming to the University of Pennsylvania.”

Negishi plans to use the money awarded to him for the Nobel Prize to further propel his research.

All three men are over the age of 74-years-old. Heck, 79 is a former professor at the University of Delaware, who now lives in the Philippines. Suzuki, who is now 80-years-old is a former professor at Hokkaido University in Japan.