Helmut Vorbrüggen Born in 1930, Helmut Vorbrüggen received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Göttingen, Germany, working with H. Brockmann (1956-1958). He held research assistant positions at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden with H. Erdtman, at Stanford University, California, USA with C. Djerassi, and at the Woodward Research Institute in Basel, Switzerland with R.B. Woodward. From 1966 until 1995 he was department head at central research of Schering AG in Berlin, Germany, as well as from 1973-1994 Adjunct Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Technical University, Berlin and from 1995-2004, Visiting Professor at the Department of Organic Chemistry, Free University, Berlin. Professor Vorbrüggen is the author and editor of more than 120 articles, reviews, and monographs and has introduced new synthetic methods as well as new reagents such as trimethylsilyl triflate into preparative organic chemistry.