| Citation | Guy Lloyd-Jones has made powerful and wide-raging contributions to our understanding of reaction mechanisms. His focus is on examples that are important in synthesis. His approach is inventive and applies novel isotopic and stereochemical probes that are used along with NMR and other spectroscopic methods, concurrently with computation. In the last 3-5 years he has provided many benchmark publications in transition-metal catalysis, especially in Suzuki coupling, asymmetric allylic alkylation, alkene isomerization, cycloisomerization of dienes, and enyne metathesis. His recently developed gold-catalysed direct arylation may well revolutionize aryl-aryl coupling chemistry. Notable contributions in organic chemistry include the elucidation of the mechanism of the Baylis-Hillman reaction and the discovery of rapid amide hydrolysis driven by steric effects. |