Centenary Prize 2009 Winner

Awarded for his innovative contributions to methodology in organic synthesis.

About the winner

Yoshinori Yamamoto received his MS and PhD degrees from Osaka University. In 1970 he was appointed as an Instructor at Osaka University, after which he went to Professor H. C. Brown's research group at Purdue University as a Postdoctoral Associate (1970-1972). In 1977 he was appointed as an Associate Professor at Kyoto University. In 1986 he moved to Tohoku University to take up his present position, Professor of Chemistry. 

He was awarded the Chemical Society of Japan Award for Young Chemists (1976), the Chemical Society of Japan Award (1996), the Humboldt Research Award (2002), Purple Ribbon Medal from The Cabinet (2006), and A. C. Cope Scholar Award from ACS (2007). 

He is the Regional Editor of Tetrahedron Letters, and he was the President of the International Society of Heterocyclic Chemistry (2000-2001). He was the project leader of the 21 Century COE Program of MEXT "Giant Molecules and Complex Systems, Chemistry Group of Tohoku University" (2002-2006). Further, he was a vice-president of Tohoku University (2006-2007) and a vice-president of the Chemical Society of Japan (2006-2007). 

From 2007, he is the director of WPI-Advanced Institute for Materials Research in Tohoku University. 

He has a wide range of research interests in synthetic organic and organometallic chemistry. His recent work focused on the use of transition-metal complexes and (sigma and/or pi electrophilic) Lewis acids as catalytic reagents in organic synthesis and synthesis of complex natural products, such as Brevetoxin B and Gambierol.