On Jul. 7, 1980, the American Chemical Society announced that Herbert C. Brown had been named the recipient of the 1991 Priestley Medal ‘for his numerous contributions to chemistry,” the American Chemical Society’s most prestigious award.

Brown discovered that diborane reacts with aldehydes and ketones to produce dialkoxyboranes, which are hydrolyzed by water to produce alcohols. Until this point, organic chemists did not have an acceptable method of reducing carbonyls under mild conditions.