The Behringer Simon lecture is an annual lecture series organized by the graduate students representing all the research groups of the Laboratory of Organic Chemistry at the ETH. It could be established due to a generous donation by a former graduate student. In previous years we were pleased to welcome Prof. B.M. Trost (2002), Prof. E.N. Jacobsen (2003), Prof. C. Koshla (2004), Prof. S. Ley (2005), Prof. C.R. Bertozzi (2006), Prof. P.B. Dervan (2007), Prof. K.C. Nicolaou (2008), Prof. J. Wood (2009), Prof. D. G. Blackmond (2010), and Prof. R. G. Bergman (2011).