Committed to the pursuit of "impossible task" - the opening life of Nobel Prize winner Benjamin Lister

Committed to the pursuit of "impossible tasks"

—The opening life of Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Benjamin Lister

On October 6, Professor Benjamin Lister, director of the Max Planck Coal Research Institute in Germany, and American scientist David Macmillan were awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Born into a family of researchers, Lister had a life experience of opening and hanging, completing the "almost impossible task" with his doctoral dissertation; his first independent experiment after becoming an assistant professor opened up a new field of research; and the family's survival from the Thai tsunami made him deeply understand what was most important in life.

Incredible moments

When he received a call from the Nobel Committee, Lister and his wife, who were on vacation in Amsterdam, were sitting in a café. The night before they had listened to Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony in the concert hall. Lister said: "When we were ordering food, I saw on the monitor that the caller ID was the area code of Sweden. My wife and I looked at each other and laughed and jokingly said, 'Here comes the [Nobel] call' – it's a joke. But then it was indeed a (Nobel Prize)-calling. It was an incredible moment. ”

In its speech, the Nobel Prize jury said: "Constructors are a difficult art. Lister and Macmillan won awards for developing a new tool for precise molecular construction, organic catalysis. This has had a huge impact on drug research, making chemistry more environmentally friendly. ”

Lister co-founded the field of organic catalysis and developed new catalytic concepts in it. He discovered that proline in natural amino acids could act as an effective catalyst, making organic catalysis possible. Their advantage is that they do not require expensive metal compounds, which are often harmful to health and the environment. They help enable more sustainable and resource-efficient chemical reactions, as almost 80% of chemical products are manufactured with the help of catalysts.

Professor Martin Stratmann, President of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, said: "I am delighted that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Benjamin Lister today. He opened a new chapter in catalysis research with great potential for application. For the first time, he successfully developed an organic catalyst with high stereoselectivity – a rare breakthrough. Professor Gerald Hauge, President of the German National Academy of Sciences, said: "This year, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognizes groundbreaking scientific discoveries in the field of asymmetric organic catalysis that play an important role in drug manufacturing and so on. ”

Thought chemistry would answer everything

Benjamin Lister was born in January 1968 in Frankfurt, Germany, to a wealthy family. The genes of scientific research may have long been rooted in this family. Lister's great-great-grandfather Jacob Folhard (1834–1910) was a famous chemist who discovered the Volhard-Erdmann cyclization reaction; great-grandfather Franz Wolhard was known as a nephrologist; and Christian Neuslein-Wolhard, a 1995 Nobel Prize-winning developmental biologist, was Lister's aunt.

As a student, Lister was obsessed with philosophical questions, such as what makes up the world? What is human being made of? He had naively thought that chemistry would answer these questions. After graduating from high school, he did not immediately apply to college, but traveled to India with two friends for 3 months. Later, at the urging of his mother, he decided to study chemistry in Berlin.

Challenge to synthesize vitamin B12

After obtaining a master's degree at the Vrije Universität Berlin in 1993, Lister came to the University of Frankfurt with his supervisor Professor Johann Murze and completed his doctorate in 1997 on the topic of his doctoral dissertation "Synthesis of vitamin B12". Lister set himself this ambitious goal. Professor Mulzer, though well aware of the difficulty, did not stop him, and it was enough to ask Lister to achieve half of his goals.

Vitamin B12 was first synthesized in 1972 by Albert Ashchen Moser of ETH Zurich and Robert Woodward of Harvard University, where more than 100 phD students and postdocs worked for a decade. Lister wanted to do it on his own, and his goal was to make molecular synthesis more perfect with fewer steps. Lister eventually achieved all his goals, accomplished "almost impossible tasks" and achieved "the best results". This was the first step in Lister's scientific career and laid a solid foundation for further achievement.

Explore your own area of study

From 1997 to 1998, with funding from the Humboldt Foundation, Lister came to the Scripps Institute in the United States as a postdoctoral fellow. At the time, all of the world's leading chemists in the study were studying the catalytic effects of antibody enzymes, including Carl Barry Chaplace, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001. Lister plunged headlong into the study of biocatalysts.

In 1999, the newlywed Lister was offered the position of assistant professor at the Scripps Institute. He and his two employees began exploring his area of research. Lister wanted to design small organic molecules that act as catalysts. From known antibody analogues, Lister knew that the enzyme had an amino group and an acid residue in the center of activity. A list of amino acids flashed through his mind. In college, he studied asymmetric hydroxyl-aldehyde reactions catalyzed by proline. So Lister thought, if proline works in a mechanism similar to an enzyme, can it also catalyze other reactions?

Finally, Lister took a glass flask, added a little proline and two reactants, and let everything stir overnight at room temperature. This was his first independent experiment. The next day, he was pleasantly surprised to find that the raw material was completely converted, and experiments confirmed his conjecture. In 2000, Lister published his research in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, which quickly caused a sensation in the industry. The study of organic catalysts is rolling in with heat waves. Lister's seminal paper was soon cited more than 2200 times.

Deeply understand the most important things in life

At the end of 2002, Lister returned to Mülheim, Germany, where he was offered a permanent position at the Max Planck Coal Institute. In 2005, he became director of the Coal Institute and director of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science.

At Mülheim, Lister quickly became one of the world's leading chemists in the field of "organic catalysis", publishing more than 400 SCI papers and a high reputation among his peers in the industry. His research interests focused on organic catalysis and synthesis, and he was one of the pioneers in the field of asymmetric organic catalysis, developing a new asymmetric catalytic model: chiral counter-anion-oriented asymmetric catalysis. These methods have developed rapidly in recent years and play an important role, such as making drug manufacturing more environmentally friendly. The knowledge gained in this way also provides clues about how molecules were originally formed, which is also important for exploring the origin of life.

Beginning in 2000, Lister has won dozens of awards, including the Leibniz Prize, and the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry adds the most important one to this long list.

Lister was a happy, open man. In 2004, the Lister family of four suffered a tsunami in Thailand, and despite being seriously injured in the water, he miraculously survived, and the reunited children in the hospital gave him a deep understanding of what really mattered. He insisted on inner freedom and walked his own path unhindered. He also practices yoga in the office to create a creative work atmosphere with a relaxed, positive charm. One of his famous quotes: "Creativity doesn't come from concentration and tension." Only when you relax can your thoughts flow. (Reporter Li Shan)

Source: Science and Technology Daily