Nobel in chemistry: Duo win 2021 Prize for developing molecule building tools
New Delhi: German scientist Benjamin List and Scottish-born David MacMillan were on Wednesday declared winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing new tools for building molecules that have helped make new, more environment-friendly drugs.
The duo will share the 10-million Swedish kronor ($1.14-million) Prize for their separate work on asymmetric organo-catalysis, which the organizers said was “a new and ingenious tool for molecule building”.
“Organic catalysts can be used to drive multitudes of chemical reactions,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement. “Using these reactions, researchers can now more efficiently construct anything from new pharmaceuticals to molecules that can capture light in solar cells.”
The new generation of catalysts was both more environment-friendly and cheaper to produce. They are the key to making new substances, such as pharmaceuticals, plastics, perfumes, and flavors.
While List works at the Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kohlenforschung, Muelheim an der Ruhr, Germany, MacMillan works at Princeton University, USA. They will share the Prize money equally for breakthroughs they achieved independently of one another.
The Nobel Prizes, for achievements in science, literature, and peace, were created and funded in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. They have been awarded since 1901, with the economics prize first handed out in 1969.
The chemistry award is the third of this year’s crop of Nobel Prizes after those in the fields of medicine/physiology and physics, announced earlier this week.
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