Oyo Mitsunobu revolutionized the chemistry of alcohols — his 1967 discovery of the Mitsunobu reaction provided a redox-based strategy for nucleophilic substitution at carbon centers bearing hydroxyl groups, which are usually poor leaving groups. After earning his doctorate under Teruaki Mukaiyama at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Mitsunobu explored the reactivity of alcohols in nucleoside chemistry. His breakthrough came when he found that a combination of triphenylphosphine and diethyl azod