Schrock, Richard Royce (1945– )

US chemist, who with French chemist Yves Chauvin and US chemist Robert H Grubbs shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2005 for his contribution to development of catalysts for the metathesis reactions (the interchange of radicals or groups of atoms in a compound) in organic chemistry.

In 1971 Chauvin described in detail how metathesis reactions worked, but no one could develop the metal compound catalysts that were essential for the reactions to take place. In 1990, Schrock developed the first efficient metal compound catalyst for the metathesis method as described by Chauvin. He was awarded his share of the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Metathesis reactions allowed the chemistry industry to develop processes that were simpler, more efficient, and which produced less hazardous waste products than was possible before the discoveries of Chauvin, Grubbs, and Schrock. Pharmaceuticals and plastics have become routinely manufactured using metathesis reactions.

Schrock was born in Berne, Indiana. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Riverside, in 1967 and was awarded his PhD from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1971. In 1975, Schrock joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and became a full professor there in 1980. In 1989 he became the Frederick G Keyes Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Schrock was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1992 and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.