CUHK
News Centre

Sun Hung Kai Properties (SHKP) and The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) will present the 18th installment of the widely acclaimed Sun Hung Kai Properties Nobel Laureates Distinguished Lectures next Monday (21 November), featuring Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi, 2010 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry on 'Pursuit of My Dreams for Half-a-Century'. During the lecture, Professor Negishi will share his scholarship with CUHK staff, students, alumni and members of the political, commercial and education sectors. 

Professor Negishi will reminisce how he has overcome many increasingly challenging competitions over 75 years to be finally recognized with a 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The statistical odds of winning a Nobel Prize may be estimated to be 1/10,000,000. One way of looking at this infinitesimally small figure is to think of it as winning 'one-in-ten' competitions seven times in a row. For example, as one of the top few in a class of a few hundred students, one may already be 1/100 or so. His competition level must continuously move up. After winning the fifth- or sixth-level competition, he may already be vying for a Nobel Prize or something equivalent to it in some other area.

Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi, H.C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Purdue University, grew up in Japan and received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Tokyo in 1958. After he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, he joined Professor H.C. Brown's Laboratories at Purdue as a Postdoctoral Associate in 1966 and was appointed Assistant to Professor Brown in 1968. Professor Negishi went to Syracuse University as Assistant Professor in 1972 and began his life-long investigations of transition metal-catalyzed organometallic reactions for organic synthesis. He was promoted to Associate Professor at Syracuse University in 1976 and invited back to Purdue University as Full Professor in 1979. In 1999 he was appointed the inaugural H.C. Brown Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.

Professor Negishi has received various awards, with the most representative being the 1996 Chemical Society of Japan Award, the 1998 ACS Award in Organometallic Chemistry, 1998–2001 Alexander von Humboldt Senior Researcher Award, Germany, 2000 Sir Edward Frankland Prize, Royal Society of Chemistry, UK, the 2007 Yamada-Koga Prize, Japan, the 2010 ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, 2010 Japanese Order of Culture, and the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 

The lecture will be shown live at local universities to reach a wider public. Hong Kong Education City will also provide a hyperlink to the webcast for online viewing by secondary school teachers and students.  

Free tickets will be available to give Hong Kong people a chance to benefit from the distinguished scholar's insight. Details are as follows: 

Lecture:

Ticket collection:
Tickets are now available at the following outlets:  

Tickets will be available while they last – one per person.  Public can also apply for online tickets at http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/nobellectures/.
Enquiries: 3943-8893 

The Sun Hung Kai Properties Nobel Laureates Distinguished Lectures were inaugurated in 2004 with The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  The series brings Nobel Laureates to speak to a broad cross-section of the community, to promote the discovery and the dissemination of knowledge, encouraging life-long learning and innovation.  After this 18th installment of the series, 25 Nobel Laureates or renowned scholars will have lectured in Hong Kong.