Professor Richard Heck: Nobel Prize-winner whose work fights cancer and protects crops

He became interested in plant nutrients and pigments when his family moved to a barren lot in California

Heck: his Nobel citation called his technique 'one of the most sophisticated tools available to chemists' (AP) (Reuters)

Richard Heck designed a method of building complex molecules that has helped fight cancer, protect crops and make electronic devices. Heck, whose interest in plants as a child led him to a career in chemistry, shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2010.

In a 2012 speech, Heck said he came from humble beginnings, the son of a department store salesman and a housewife in a suburb of Massachusetts. He said he became interested about nutrients and pigments in plants when his family moved to a new home on a barren lot in California.

“I had never thought the simple work of planting an empty yard would bloom and peak into an achievement of the noblest honour in the world of science,” he said. “I find my meaning as a scientist in what I have been able to make of my country, in what I have been able to contribute to significantly better the lives of peoples across cultures and societies.”.

Heck and his co-winners, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki, designed their technique to bind together carbon atoms, a key step in assembling organic compounds used in medicine, agriculture and electronics. Carbon atoms are normally shy about pairing up; the winning approach was to use atoms of the metal palladium to encourage carbon atoms to bond.

The technique, called palladium-catalysed cross-coupling, was easier to carrier out than previous methods and the Nobel committee cited it as “one of the most sophisticated tools available to chemists today (and) vastly improved the possibilities of chemists to create sophisticated chemicals.”

Richard Fred Heck, chemist: born Springfield, Massachusetts 15 August 1931; married Socorro Nardo (died 2012); died Manila 10 October 2015.