Herbert Charles Brown

Brown, Herbert Charles, 1912–2004, American chemist, b. London, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1938. A professor at Wayne State Univ. (1943–47) and Purdue Univ. (1947–78), he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Georg Wittig. Brown developed boron-containing compounds as important reagents in organic synthesis. These organoborones provided an inexpensive means of making organic chemicals used in agricultural, pharmaceutical, and other industries.

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