Stille cross-coupling
Palladium and tin combined to lay the foundations for a revolution in C–C bond-forming reactions
John Stille, who tragically died in a plane crash in 1989, was a pioneer in palladium-catalysed cross-coupling reactions. He worked out a lot of the mechanistic and kinetic details, opening the door to many other cross-coupling reactions that were eventually recognised with a Nobel prize for chemistry in 2010.