Kenkichi Sonogashira

Who is Kenkichi Sonogashira?

Kenkichi Sonogashira is a Japanese chemist and was a Professor of Chemistry at Osaka University in Japan. He discovered the Sonogashira coupling in 1975. Sonogashira was later a professor at Osaka City University and retired in 2004.

In The Simpsons episode Elementary School Musical which premiered on September 26, 2010, "Kenkichi Sonogashira" appeared on a paper held by the character Martin Prince as picked by Lisa Simpson as her entry in a betting pool for the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This turned out to be not so far from reality, because the 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to other scientists working in the same field of palladium-catalyzed coupling reactions.