The Lawrence Award was established in December 1959 to honor the memory of LBL-founder Ernest Orlando Lawrence. This year, age was not a selection factor. Bergman is 51. Bergman won his award in the category of Chemistry for pioneering research in the field of organometallic chemistry and for his discovery of a class of metal complexes with important commercial applications for the oil and coal industry. The thrust of Bergman's research has been the activation of alkanes.
Alkanes are compounds of carbon and hydrogen atoms held together by single bonds.
Chemists have long coveted the use of alkanes as feedstock for clean- burning fuels and a host of petrochemicals, including plastics, solvents, synthetic fibers, and pharmaceutical drugs. The problem has been that the bonds between an alkane's carbon and hydrogen atoms are so strong as to render alkanes generally unreactive. Bergman's discovery created an entire new subfield of chemistry virtually overnight. Since then, he has been working to better understand the reaction with the ultimate aim of designing a process that is truly catalytic. Chicago-born Bergman received his B.S. from Carleton College and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin.