The Wolf Prize in Chemistry, first awarded in 1978 by the Israel‐based Wolf Foundation, is given once a year to a chemist or group of chemists whose work has had a tremendous impact on their field and on society. The prestige of this award can be seen through perusing the list of recipients over the past 32 years, which includes 9 current Nobel laureates, and many others whose names are mentioned each October in conversations about who will receive the next Nobel prize. We were therefore delighted that our Ph.D. advisors were selected to join this prestigious group of scientists when the 2019 Wolf Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Stephen L. Buchwald and John F. Hartwig “for the development of efficient transition‐metal catalysts that have revolutionized drug manufacturing, leading to breakthrough in molecule and synthetics design.” We were also honored and pleased when Prof. Ehud Keinan, Editor‐in‐Chief of the Israel Journal of Chemistry , and President of the Israel Chemical Society, invited us to serve as guest editors for this special issue in recognition of Profs. Buchwald's and Hartwig's many accomplishments.

The two of us were extremely fortunate to not only have worked for Steve and John, but also to have joined those groups in the early days of the Buchwald‐Hartwig Amination (JL joined the Hartwig group in 1993, and JPW joined the Buchwald group in 1994). The mid‐late 1990’s were certainly an exciting time to be a member of one of these research groups, and it was truly fascinating to be involved in the development and evolution of such an important chemical transformation. During that span of time, the field of Pd‐catalyzed carbon−heteroatom bond‐forming reactions, led by efforts of Steve, John, and their co‐workers, took quantum leaps forward. In that relatively short period of time, a transformation that initially had exceptionally limited scope, required stoichiometric amounts of tin, and had little or no practical utility, became a reaction that was easy to run, with broad scope and utility, that literally everyone was using. John and Steve taught their co‐workers, and also a broad swath of scientists in a variety of sub‐disciplines of chemistry, important lessons about organometallic reactivity and the key role that phosphine ligands play in facilitating challenging metal‐catalyzed reactions. In addition, they accomplished this while simultaneously creating a fundamentally new and useful way to construct extremely important carbon−heteroatom and carbon−carbon bonds.

In celebration of this award, we have assembled a collection of reviews and primary research articles from students, postdocs, and friends of Steve and John, that we hope you will find stimulating and useful. In these articles, the reader will be able to see lessons that many of us learned from John and Steve about designing and developing new transformations and new catalysts, including the elegance of simplicity, the importance of user‐friendly reagents and conditions, and the role of mechanistic understanding on improving reactivity/selectivity. The issue is rounded out by an essay co‐written by Profs. Hartwig and Buchwald that provides insight into the prior studies that led to their interest in aromatic C−N bond formation and the eventual development of the Buchwald‐Hartwig Amination Reaction. They also remind us of the importance of basic research, and the fact that the key findings of tomorrow are often, or perhaps usually, preceded by the intellectual curiosity of individual scientists who seek to gain a better understanding of the world that can eventually be applied in practical and useful ways.

In closing, we thank Prof. Ehud Keinan for his kind invitation to serve as guest editors for this special issue, along with his advice and his help with the cover art. We also thank Dr. Brian Johnson at Wiley VCH for his support through the process of recruiting authors, getting manuscripts reviewed, and answering our many questions. We would especially like to thank all of the authors for their contributions, and for making this a truly special issue. Finally, we would like to thank Steve and John for their mentorship, not only as graduate students, but throughout our careers, and to say “Congratulations” to both for their many accomplishments that are being recognized through their receipt of the Wolf Prize.

总部设在以色列的沃尔夫基金会（Wolf Foundation）于1978年首次授予沃尔夫化学奖，该奖项每年颁发一次给其工作领域和社会产生巨大影响的化学家或一组化学家。通过仔细阅读过去32年中的获奖者名单，可以看出该奖项的声望，其中包括9名现任诺贝尔奖获得者，以及每年10月在有关谁将获得下一个诺贝尔奖的对话中提到其名字的许多其他人。因此，我们很高兴获得博士学位。Stephen L. Buchwald和John F. Hartwig获得了2019年度沃尔夫化学奖，以表彰他们的研究成果，他们是开发有效的过渡金属催化剂的创新者，这些药物彻底改变了药物制造，并在分子领域取得了突破。和合成材料设计。以色列化学杂志和以色列化学学会主席邀请我们担任本期特刊的客座编辑，以表彰Prof. 布赫瓦尔德和哈特维格的许多成就。

我们两个人非常幸运，不仅为史蒂夫和约翰工作过，而且在布赫瓦尔德-哈特维格胺化工厂的早期就加入了这些小组（JL于1993年加入了Hartwig组，JPW于2000年加入了布赫瓦尔德。 1994）。1990年代中期，成为其中一个研究小组的成员无疑是一个激动人心的时刻，并且参与如此重要的化学转化的发展和演变确实令人着迷。在这段时间里，在史蒂夫，约翰及其同事的带领下，钯催化的碳杂原子键形成反应领域取得了长足的发展。在相对较短的时间内，最初的转换范围极其有限，需要化学计量的锡，几乎没有或没有实用价值的转化，成为一种易于运行的反应，具有广泛的范围和实用性，几乎每个人都在使用它。约翰和史蒂夫（Steve）和他们的同事以及许多化学子学科的科学家，有关有机金属反应性的重要课程以及膦配体在促进具有挑战性的金属催化反应中的关键作用等方面的知识广博。此外，他们在完成这项工作的同时，还创造了一种从根本上新的有用的方法来构建极其重要的碳杂原子和碳碳键。关于有机金属反应性的重要课程以及膦配体在促进具有挑战性的金属催化反应中所起的关键作用。此外，他们在完成这项工作的同时，还创造了一种从根本上新的有用的方法来构建极其重要的碳杂原子和碳碳键。关于有机金属反应性的重要课程以及膦配体在促进具有挑战性的金属催化反应中所起的关键作用。此外，他们在完成这项工作的同时，还创造了一种从根本上新的有用的方法来构建极其重要的碳杂原子和碳碳键。

为了庆祝这一奖项，我们收集了学生，博士后以及史蒂夫和约翰的朋友们的评论和主要研究文章，希望您能从中受益匪浅。在这些文章中，读者将可以从我们很多人的约翰和史蒂夫中学到的教训中，学习有关设计和开发新的转化方法和新的催化剂，包括简洁的优雅，用户友好的试剂和条件的重要性以及作用。关于提高反应性/选择性的机械理解。该问题由Professors共同撰写的论文解决。Hartwig和Buchwald提供了对先前研究的见识，这些研究导致他们对芳族C-N键的形成以及Buchwald-Hartwig胺化反应的最终发展产生了兴趣。

最后，我们感谢埃胡德·凯南（Ehud Keinan）教授的盛情邀请，邀请他担任特刊的特约编辑，以及他的建议和对封面艺术的帮助。我们还要感谢Wiley VCH的Brian Johnson博士在招募作者，审核稿件以及回答我们的许多问题的过程中给予的支持。我们尤其要感谢所有作者的贡献，并感谢他们的贡献。最后，我们要感谢史蒂夫（Steve）和约翰（John）不仅作为研究生而且在我们的整个职业生涯中都受到了指导，并对他们获得的沃尔夫奖（Wolf Prize）所认可的许多成就表示“祝贺”。