From 1963 until 1965, Suzuki worked as a postdoctoral student with Herbert C. Brown at Purdue University and after returning to the Hokudai he became a full professor there. The postdoctoral experience was utilized in the study of the coupling reaction with his assistant Norio Miyaura and led to the discovery of Suzuki reaction announced in 1979. Its organic boronic acids with aryl and vinyl group are stable to water and air, easy to handle, and because the conditions required for use are also relatively mild, even among the several cross-coupling techniques, it is said to be easy to use. Its full mechanism is shown in the image below.
With his retirement from Hokudai in 1994 he took several positions in other universities: 1994–1995 Okayama University of Science and 1995–2002 Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts. In addition, he was an invited professor at Purdue University (2001), Academic Sinica and the National Taiwan University (2002).
In 2010, Suzuki was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry together with Richard F. Heck and Ei-ichi Negishi.
To celebrate International Year of Chemistry (IYC 2011), Suzuki was interviewed by the UNESCO Courier magazine, he said：
In 2014, a Canadian-Chinese student asked for Suzuki's advice: "how can I become a great chemist like you?", Suzuki answered him: "... above all else, you must learn to see through the appearance to perceive the essence."