On the afternoon of October 6, Beijing time, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm that the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be awarded to German scientist Benjamin List and British-born scientist David W.C. MacMillan in recognition of their "contributions to the development of asymmetric organic catalysis". They will share a prize of 10 million Swedish kronor (about 7.35 million yuan).
Expert analysis pointed out that this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is a "veritable chemistry prize" awarded to two pure chemists. The research of these two chemists, asymmetric organic catalysis, helps to synthesize new drugs simpler, more efficiently, greener and more environmentally friendly.
Why was it awarded to them?
According to the Nobel Prize website, Liszt and McMillan have developed a new and ingenious molecular construction tool, organic catalysis, whose uses include researching new drugs and helping to make chemistry more environmentally friendly.
Many fields of research and industries rely on the ability of chemists to construct molecules that can form elastic, durable materials that store energy in batteries or inhibit the progression of disease. This work requires catalysts—substances that control and accelerate chemical reactions—but they don't become part of the final product. It can be said that catalysts are the basic tools of chemists.
Many molecules exist in two variants, one of which is a mirror image of the other, which exert completely different effects on the body. For example, one version of the limonene molecule has a lemon flavor, while its mirror image variant has an orange flavor. Image source Nobel Prize official Twitter
For a long time, researchers thought there were only two catalysts available — metals and enzymes. But Liszt and McMillan independently developed a third catalyst, asymmetric organic catalysis, independently of each other in 2000.
Deng Liezheng, an associate researcher at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, pointed out in an interview with the Beijing News reporter that the asymmetric organic catalysis developed by Lister and McMillan solves the problem of efficient synthesis of chiral organic compounds.
"Simply put, there are chiral molecules in organic matter, which are divided into left-handed and right-handed. In organic synthesis, left-handed molecules and right-handed molecules usually appear together, and the problem they want to solve is the problem of specificity, that is, only one chiral molecule is synthesized, and it is an efficient synthesis. Asymmetric organic catalysis solves this problem. Deng Liezheng explained.
"Asymmetric organic catalysis causes organic chemistry to occur in the direction of chiral molecules that people want to obtain. This year's two Nobel laureates in chemistry have invented a method that makes this catalytic reaction more efficient, 7,000 times faster than the previous method," Deng said, "in other words, the method is simpler, more efficient, greener and more environmentally friendly."
Johan Åqvist, chairman of the Nobel Committee on Chemistry, said, "This catalytic concept is both simple and ingenious, and in fact many people wonder why we didn't think about it earlier." ”
What are the main applications of this research?
Benjamin Liszt was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1968 and currently works at the Max Planck Coal Institute in Mülheim am Ruhr, Germany.
Liszt and his wife. Image source Nobel Prize official Twitter
David McMillan was born in Scotland in 1968 and is currently a professor of chemistry at Princeton University. From 2010 to 2015, he served as chair of the Chemistry Department at Princeton University.
David McMillan. Video screenshots
According to the official website of the Nobel Prize, since 2000, organic catalysis has developed at an alarming rate. But Liszt and McMillan are undoubtedly leaders in the field, demonstrating that organic catalysis can be used to drive multiple chemical reactions.
Using these reactions, researchers can more efficiently construct anything, including new drugs, molecules that can capture light in solar cells, and more. In this way, organic catalysis is bringing the greatest benefits to humans.
"Asymmetric organic catalysis is mainly used in drug synthesis." Deng Liezheng explained that drugs are chiral, and effective drugs are usually left-handed molecules, and right-handed molecules are harmful. However, in the past drug synthesis, left-handed molecules and right-handed molecules appeared together, and asymmetric organic catalysis solved this specificity problem, synthesizing only the left-handed molecules that researchers wanted, and the unwanted right-handed molecules would not be generated.
Ding Xuejia, a professor at the School of Materials Science and Engineering of Beijing University of Chemical Technology, pointed out to the Beijing News reporter that when constructing molecules, there are often situations where two different molecules can be formed, just like our hands, they are mirror images of each other. Chemists often only need one of these, especially when it comes to producing drugs, which can make a relatively simple number of different asymmetric molecules, simplifying the production of existing drugs, such as paroxetine for the treatment of depression and anxiety.
In addition, asymmetric organic catalysis also has significant potential applications for the future synthesis of proteins. Deng Liezheng said that recently everyone is paying attention to the news of synthetic starch, and the development of efficient asymmetric organic catalytic methods has great significance for synthetic proteins.
"Proteins and the amino acids that make up proteins are chiral, and to synthesize proteins efficiently and on a large scale, it is first necessary to synthesize chiral amino acids on a large scale efficiently and on a large scale, and this asymmetric organic catalytic reaction method discovered by this year's Nobel Prize winner in chemistry is of great significance."
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is no longer a "science prize"?
"The biggest feature of this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is that it returns to pure chemistry and is a veritable Nobel Prize in Chemistry." Deng Liezheng said.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has long been controversial, and many chemists believe that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is often awarded to "non-chemists", and gradually becomes a "comprehensive prize in science".
In previous decades, scientists in the fields of biochemistry, molecular biology, physical chemistry, biophysics and even materials science have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. According to statistics, in the decade before 2012, only 4 awards were awarded to chemical research in the strict sense.
Some analysts pointed out that in the initial period of the Nobel Prize, biology was still in its infancy, so this award was not established at that time. The field of chemistry spans a large scale and forms many interdisciplinary disciplines, so the chemistry prize is often awarded to scientists in other research directions.
But, Deng said, this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry is an encouraging and gratifying prize for those who work in pure chemistry — especially in organic chemistry. "It finally returned to its roots and was awarded to pure chemists – asymmetric organic catalysis is the typical chemical problem."
Ding Xuejia also recognized this. He said that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was once considered the "Science and Synthesis Award", which rewarded many traditional chemists and rewarded many work that intersected with chemistry. "This reward for the asymmetric catalysis of small organic molecules is, to some extent, a return to the recognition of traditional chemistry."
Nobel Prize in Chemistry Trivia
From 1901 to 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded 112 times, with a total of 186 winners. Since British biochemist Frederick Sanger won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice in 1958 and 1980, the actual number of winners is 185.
The youngest Nobel laureate in chemistry was Jean Frederick Joliot-Curie, who was 35 years old when he won the prize in 1935. The oldest Nobel laureate in chemistry is John Goodenough, who was 97 years old when he won the prize in 2019. As of 2020, a total of 7 women have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In addition to Frederick Sanger, who has twice won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, two Nobel laureates in chemistry have won other Nobel Prizes. Among them Marie Curie, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911, Linus Pauling, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961, linus Pauling was the only winner to win both solo prizes.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to two female scientists, Emmanuel Carpentier from France and Jennifer Doudna from the United States, in recognition of "developing a method of editing genomes."
Beijing News reporter Xie Lian
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