Richard Royce Schrock Biography - Nobel Prize Winner (2005)

Richard Royce Schrock (born January 4, 1945) was one of the recipients of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to the metathesis method in organic chemistry.

Born in Berne, Indiana, Schrock went to high school in San Diego, California. He holds a B.A. (1967) from the University of California, Riverside and a Ph.D. (1971) from Harvard University. At Harvard he studied under J. A. Osborn. In 1971-72, he carried out postdoctoral studies at the University of Cambridge with Lord Jack Lewis. In 1972, he was hired by E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company, where he worked in the group of George Parshall. He joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975 and became full professor in 1980. He has held his current post, the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, at MIT since 1989. Schrock is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He has two children.

In 2005, Schrock received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Robert H. Grubbs and Yves Chauvin, for his work in the area of olefin metathesis, an organic synthesis technique. Schrock was the first to elucidate the structure and mechanism of so called 'black box' olefin metathesis catalysts. Initial work at DuPont involved the synthesis of tantalum alkylidenes, alkylidenes being a crucial resting state in the catalytic cycle of olefin metathesis. His work at MIT has led to a detailed understanding of a group of molybdenum alkylidenes and alkylidynes which are active olefin and alkyne methathesis catalysts, respectively. Schrock has done much work to demonstrate that metallacyclobutanes are the key intermediate in olefin metathesis, with metallacyclobutadienes being the key intermediate in alkyne methathesis. Many suppporting ligands have been explored in efforts to better understand the nature of the single molecule catalysts, most notably 2,6-diisopropylamido and adamantylamido, as well as various tert-butyl alkoxides with varying degrees of fluorination. The prototypical Schrock catalyst is (R"O)2(R'N)Mo(CHR) where R = neopentyl, R' = 2,6-diisopropyl, and R" = C(Me)(CF3)2. Such catalysts are now commericially available from such major suppliers as Sigma-Aldrich, and are used frequently in synthetic applications of olefin metathesis. Schrock's work is ongoing with goals of furthering the understanding of metathesis selectivity, developing new catalyst architechtures, as well as projects outside of metathesis, such as elucidating the mechanism of dinitrogen fixation and developing single molecule catalysts which form ammonia from dinitrogen, mimicking the activity of nitrogenase enzymes in biology.