Nobel Prize In Chemistry 2021: Benjamin List, David MacMillan Get Nobel For 'Asymmetric Organocatalysis'

Nobel Prize 2021 in Chemistry: Benjamin List and David MacMillan have developed a new and ingenious tool for molecule building, known as organocatalysis. It has helped make chemistry greener

Nobel laureates Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan | Photo: Twitter/@NobelPrize

New Delhi: The 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.” 

Professor Göran K. Hansson, Secretary General of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced the winners of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday.

Benjamin List and David MacMillan have developed a new and ingenious tool for molecule building, known as organocatalysis. Its uses include research into new pharmaceuticals and it has also helped make chemistry greener.

Benjamin List and David MacMillan developed asymmetric organocatalysis, which builds upon small organic molecules, independently of each other.

The Chemistry Nobel for 2020 was awarded jointly to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna "for the development of a method for genome editing".

Due to the pandemic, the Nobel celebrations this year are a combination of virtual and physical events. The Nobel Prize medals and the Nobel Prize diploma will be received by the laureates in their home countries in December, according to the Nobel Prize Organisation. 

Each laureate will get an amount of 10 million Swedish krona.

The announcement is being streamed live on the official digital channels of the Nobel Prize.

History of Nobel Prize in Chemistry 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded 112 times, to 186 Nobel Prize laureates, between 1901 and 2020. Frederick Sanger is the only laureate who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice, in 1958 and 1980. 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1901 was awarded to Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions".

Marie Curie, née Sklodowska, was the first woman to have received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911 “in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element”.