Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan awarded 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Organocatalysis has had far reaching impact on pharmaceutical research, and has made chemistry greener.
Markus Marcetic | The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Drs. Benjamin List and David MacMillan have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 for their development of a precise new tool for molecular construction: organocatalysis.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the organisation which confers the prize, organocatalysis has had a great impact on pharmaceutical research, and has made chemistry greener.
Dr. Benjamin List, born 1968 in Frankfurt, Germany is Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr, in Germany.
Dr. David W.C. MacMillan, born 1968 in Bellshill, UK. Is Professor at Princeton University, in the USA.
Many research areas and industries are dependent on chemists’ ability to construct molecules that can form elastic and durable materials, store energy in batteries or inhibit the progression of diseases. The work of Drs. List and MacMillan requires catalysts, which are substances that control and accelerate chemical reactions, without becoming part of the final product — for example catalysts in cars transform toxic substances in exhaust fumes to harmless molecules.
Catalysts are fundamental tools for chemists, but researchers long believed that there were, in principle, just two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes. Benjamin List and David MacMillan were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 because in 2000 they, independent of each other, developed a third type of catalysis. It is called asymmetric organocatalysis and builds upon small organic molecules.
This concept for catalysis is as simple as it is ingenious, and the fact is that many people have wondered why we didn’t think of it earlier.
Organic catalysts have a stable framework of carbon atoms, to which more active chemical groups can attach. These often contain common elements such as oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur or phosphorus. This means that these catalysts are both environmentally friendly and cheap to produce.
The rapid expansion in the use of organic catalysts is primarily due to their ability to drive asymmetric catalysis. When molecules are being built, situations often occur where two different molecules can form, which — like our hands — are each other’s mirror image. Chemists will often only want one of these, particularly when producing pharmaceuticals.
Organocatalysis has developed at an astounding speed since 2000 and Drs. Benjamin List and David MacMillan remain leaders in the field, and have shown that organic catalysts can be used to drive multitudes of chemical reactions.
Using these reactions, researchers can now more efficiently construct anything from new pharmaceuticals to molecules that can capture light in solar cells.
The Laureates will equally share a prize amount of 10 million Swedish kronor between them.
