Organic synthesis owes a major debt to François Auguste Victor Grignard, whose pioneering studies were a critical early step in the advancement of the field. When he entered the profession at the turn of the century, the task of combining different organic chemical species was a major hurdle in the synthesis of new compounds. Grignard developed a process that enabled chemists to join many types of organic chemical compounds. It was a method that could be used with a broad array of organic reactants; it was also inexpensive and simple to perform, and it resulted in high yields. These features resulted in its rapid adoption by organic chemists around the world. Grignard shared the 1912 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Paul Sabatier. Grignard was born in Cherbourg, France, on May 6, 1871. His mother was Marie Hébert Grignard; his father, Théophile Henri Grignard, was a...