“…In this pioneering publication, cited 3000 times as of the time of writing, "the detection of NMR spectra of less sensitive nuclei coupled to protons was shown to be significantly improved by a two-dimensional Fourier transform technique involving a double transfer of polarization". Building on the ideas of 2-D NMR (Jeener and Alewaeters, 2016;Aue et al, 1976) and magnetization transfer between a heteronucleus and proton by their scalar coupling (Maudsley and Ernst, 1977;Morris and Freeman, 1979), polarization transfer from the proton to the insensitive heteronucleus in the excitation step and back to proton for the detection led to a tremendous gain in sensitivity. The HSQC experiment was born, and although initially described for a proton directly linked to its amide nitrogen, it was readily applied to other nuclei such as 199 Hg (Roberts et al, 1980), 113 Cd (Live et al, 1985), 31 P (Bolton and Bodenhausen, 1982) and 13 C (Bendall et al, 1983).…”