Portrait of the French chemist Francois Auguste Grignard (1871-1935). He graduated in mathematics at the University of Lyon but soon became interested in chemistry. Grignard discovered that magnesium, combined with organic halogen compounds in ether solution, acts as a catalyser in a variety of reactions to produce organic alcohols and organometallics. These reactions, also known as the Grignard reactions, are most important in the synthesis of organic products. In 1910 Grignard received a professorship in chemistry at the University of Nancy and in 1912 he shared with Paul Sabatier, another French chemist, the Nobel Prize in chemistry.