The Nagoya Gold Medal was awarded to Professor Ben Feringa, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Since 1995, this medal has been presented to an organic chemist for significant contributions to the field.

Professor Naoto Chatani, Osaka University, Japan, received the Silver Medal, which was established also in 1995 and is given to a Japanese scientist whose work has had a major impact on the field of synthetic organic chemistry.

These medals were presented at Nagoya University on November 7, when the recipients also gave their award lectures.

Ben Feringa received the Gold Medal for his research on chiral space in asymmetric catalysis and on dynamic molecular systems.

Feringa obtained his Ph.D. in 1978 at the University of Groningen for research supervised by Professor Hans Wynberg. After working as a research scientist at Shell in the Netherlands and the UK, he returned to the University of Groningen as a lecturer and in 1988 he was promoted to full professor. He remained there and in 2004 he was named the Jacobus H. van’t Hoff Distinguished Professor of Molecular Sciences.

He was elected Foreign Honory member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences. In 2008 he was appointed Academy Professor and was knighted by Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands. Currently, Feringa is director of the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry and the Center for Systems Chemistry at the University of Groningen.

Feringa’s work focuses on stereochemistry, organic synthesis, asymmetric catalysis, molecular switches and motors, self-assembly and molecular nanosystems.

Naoto Chatani is honored for his work on chelation-assisted transformations of C–H bonds.

Chatani studied at Osaka University, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1984 under the guidance of Noboru Sonoda and Shinji Murai. In 1984, he joined the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research at Osaka University as assistant professor in the group of Professor Terukiyo Hanafusa and in 1988 he went to the University of Illinois, Urbana, USA, where he was a postdoctoral researcher for Professor Scott E. Denmark. In 1989, he was made assistant professor of the group of Shinji Murai at the Department of Applied Chemistry at Osaka University, and he was promoted to full professor in 2003.

Chatani’s research interests include the development of synthetic methods and catalytic sytems by using transition-metal complexes, including catalysis by activation of unreactive bonds, the efficient capture of reactive intermediates, and catalytic cycloaddition reactions.

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Selected publications by Ben Feringa:

• Palladium-Catalyzed Selective Anti-Markovnikov Oxidation of Allylic Esters,
  Jia Jia Dong, Martín Fañanás-Mastral, Paul L. Alsters, Wesley R. Browne, Ben L. Feringa,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 5561–5565.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201301809
• Azobenzene Photoswitches for Staudinger–Bertozzi Ligation,
  Wiktor Szymański, Bian Wu, Claudia Poloni, Dick B. Janssen, Ben L. Feringa,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013, 52, 2068–2072.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201208596
• Diversity-Oriented Enantioselective Synthesis of Highly Functionalized Cyclic and Bicyclic Alcohols,
  Bin Mao, Martín Fañanás-Mastral, Martin Lutz, Ben L. Feringa,
  Chem. Eur. J. 2013, 19, 761–770.
  DOI: 10.1002/chem.201202859
• Molecular Switches,
  Ben L. Feringa, Wesley R. Browne (Eds.),
  Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, 2011.
  ISBN: 978-3-527-31365-5

Selected publications by Naoto Chatani:

• Catalytic Functionalization of C(sp²)–H and C(sp³)–H Bonds by Using Bidentate Directing Groups,
  G. Rouquet, N. Chatani,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201301451
• Palladium-Catalyzed Direct Synthesis of Phosphole Derivatives from Triarylphosphines through Cleavage of Carbon–Hydrogen and Carbon–Phosphorus Bonds,
  K. Baba, M. Tobisu, N. Chatani,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2013.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201307115
• Nickel-Catalyzed Direct Alkylation of C–H Bonds in Benzamides and Acrylamides with Functionalized Alkyl Halides via Bidentate-Chelation Assistance,
  Y. Aihara, N. Chatani,
  J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135(14), 5308–5311.
  DOI: 10.1021/ja401344e

Also of interest:

• Polish Chemical Society Awards,
  ChemViews Mag. 2013.
  Ben Feringa, Netherlands, and Janusz Jurczak, Poland, have received awards from the Polish Chemical Society