The 2021 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded on Wednesday 6 October in Stockholm to the German Benjamin List and the American David MacMillan for having developed a new tool for constructing molecules, “Asymmetric organocatalysis”.
Catalysts – substances that control and speed up chemical reactions, but are not part of the end product – are fundamental tools for chemists. But researchers have long believed that there are, in principle, only two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes.
Benjamin List and David MacMillan, both 53, “Receive the Nobel Prize for having, independently of one another, developed a third type of catalysis, asymmetric organocatalysis, a field that has developed” at a prodigious speed since the 2000s, explained the Nobel jury.
Infographics of the Nobel Academy:
Why is nature asymmetric? While like our hands, which are the image of each other in a mirror, molecules should adopt these two possible configurations in the same proportion, we observe an imbalance in their availability. ” It’s a mystery “answers Benjamin List, whose job, like David McMillan’s, has been to find a way to produce either configuration in a controlled fashion. “It is a tremendous gift of nature to offer us these molecules”, reacted Benjamin List.
“More freedom of research”
“I thought I was the only one at the time to work on the subject, I did not know that David MacMillan was also on this track. When I saw that it was working, I immediately thought it would be important, but certainly not that much ”, did he declare.
“My favorite catalyst is proline, the first one I discovered. It is an element that can be eaten, it is slightly sweet. But the catalysts we are creating today are of equal interest to me. “
“What impact will the Nobel have on my research? I like to go to extremes, which has yet to be explored. This will give me even more research freedom than I already have in my institute. I hope to live up to this award in the future ”, said the researcher. Benjamin List heads the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, a research institute specializing in catalysis, and David MacMillan teaches chemistry at Princeton University in the United States. The two winners will share equally the sum of 10 million Swedish crowns (990,000 euros).
They succeed the French geneticist and microbiologist Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American biochemist Jennifer Doudna, awarded in 2020 for the “Molecular scissors”, capable of altering human genes, a revolutionary breakthrough.
A little early to reward messenger RNA
The breakthroughs in DNA sequencing, nanocrystals, “click chemistry” or even the pioneers of messenger RNA vaccines against Covid-19 were among the speculations for this year. With well over a billion people worldwide vaccinated with products using messenger RNA, their contribution “For the benefit of humanity” required by the Nobel will is not in doubt. But many believe it was a bit early for the generally very cautious Nobel Assembly, and that they will wait for the next few years.
The Nobel season continues Thursday with literature, before peace Friday and economics Monday. The prestigious award is the third of the season after the Nobel Prize in Medicine, which was awarded on Monday to two specialists in the nervous system and touch, Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian, whose work paved the way for combating chronic pain , and the Nobel in physics, awarded Tuesday to two experts in the physical modeling of climate change, the American-Japanese Syukuro Manabe and the German Klaus Hasselmann, as well as to the Italian Giorgio Parisi, theorist of complex physical systems.
The more recently created savings prize will close the season on Monday.