Elias James Corey was a whiz kid from Methuen who wrote his doctoral thesis in four weeks, earned a PhD at age 22 and was made a full professor at 27. Yesterday, at 62, he won an award that friends and colleagues said was years, even decades, overdue: the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

      At Harvard University, Corey, known as "E.J." to graduate students and faculty members alike, has been professor of chemistry since 1959. He is the 33rd Harvard faculty member to win a Nobel Prize, and the sixth Harvard professor to win a Nobel in chemistry.

      Described by current and former students as a man of enormous drive, dedication and concentration, Corey is also a stern but fair taskmaster who, they say, does not suffer fools gladly.

      His hobbies? David A. Evans, a fellow chemistry professor at Harvard, put it bluntly, "Chemistry. He works seven days a week."

      His father died when Corey was 18 months old, and his mother and aunt pooled their households to survive the Depression years. "It never occurred to me that I'd be a professor," Corey recalled "One's expectations were not high in those days. It was enough to get an education and do the best I could."

      His best, even then, was impressive. Corey blitzed through the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, getting a bachelor of science degree in 1948 and his doctorate two years later.

      Over the next 40 years, he won so many awards that last year, an article in the journal Chemistry in Britain called him a "20th century folk hero," an "inspiringly modest man" who has built "an understanding of fundamental chemistry that will lead to tomorrow's medicines."

      As word of his Nobel spread yesterday through the labs and corridors of Harvard's Conant Laboratories, Corey's students gathered outside his office, gulping beer at 10 a.m. and bubbling with admiration for the mentor many described as "the father of synthetic organic chemistry."

      By noon, fellow faculty members, including previous Nobel laureates such as chemist Dudley Herschbach, came to share the glow with a jubilant Corey. Herschbach spoke for many when he said, "E.J. changed the whole way that modern chemistry is done."

      At a news conference, students covered the blackboard with chemical diagrams and cheered as Corey strode in.

      Reporters pressed for practical applications of Corey's work, which has made possible the creation of complex molecules used in everything from medicines to paints to pesticides. But Corey, to the cheers of his students, stressed the importance of basic science, holding up a copy of his book, The Logic of Chemical Synthesis.

      To the lay public, the scientific language for describing Corey's achievements may sound esoteric: He developed the theory and methodology of organic synthesis. But to the hundreds of scientists Corey has trained over the years, his work is the bedrock upon which all else rests.

      The Nobel Prize committee cited him in particular for work he did in the 1960s, the development of a technique called "retrosynthetic analysis." This is a method for analyzing a compound found in nature, figuring out how its components are bonded together and then using this knowledge to make a synthetic version of the compound.

"In this way," said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, "less complicated building blocks were obtained which could later be assembled in the process of synthesis."

      Corey went on to show how this method could be enhanced by computer programming, developing a process of computer synthetic planning that "is developing rapidly," the Academy said.

      The Swedish academy said Corey's work has "contributed to the high standard of living and health and the longevity enjoyed at least in the Western world," and Corey himself acknowledged that there "is not a pharmaceutical lab in the world that has not used discoveries made in our lab."

      Altogether, Corey has created about 100 synthetic versions of key natural compounds.

      Early in his career, he created synthetic versions of natural body chemicals called prostaglandins, which play a crucial role in inflammation, blood clotting, blood flow, gastrointestinal functions and other biological processes.

      Two years ago, Corey synthesized a substance called ginkgolide B, a substance Chinese herbal doctors have used for 5,000 years in its natural form, a tree extract, to treat a variety of heart and lung diseases. Using Corey's work, British researchers have begun using gingkolide B to treat patients with asthma and certain inflammations.

      Today, Corey said, his students and postdoctoral fellows are working on 20 to 25 projects, including "molecular robots," enzyme-like chemicals that pick up one chemical ingredient and attach it to another to create a synthetic compound.

      Corey, who has trained an unusually large number of young scientists over the years, said he believes teaching "is as important as research."

      One former student, Professor David Cane of Brown University's chemistry department, agreed.

      Calling Corey "one of the giants of 20th-century chemistry," he said Corey probably has trained "500 graduate students and post-docs, an exceptionally large number. And many of these people have been very successful in chemistry, here and abroad, in universities and the pharmaceutical industry."

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