Nobel Prize in Chemistry Awarded to Scientists for Creating a Tool to Build Molecules

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: New York Times

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded on Wednesday to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan for their development of a new tool to build molecules, work that has spurred advances in pharmaceutical research and lessened the impact of chemistry on the environment. Their work, while unseen by consumers, is an essential part in many leading industries and is vital for research.

Chemists are among those tasked with constructing molecules that can form elastic and durable materials, store energy in batteries or inhibit the progression of diseases.

But that work 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,” the Nobel committee said in a statement. “Our bodies also contain thousands of catalysts in the form of enzymes, which chisel out the molecules necessary for life.” The problem was that there were just two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/science/nobel-prize-chemistry.html

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Congrats to these guys!

This is pretty cool. They found a new way to bind molecules. I know my senior year chem research, I was fooling with nickelocene as a component to come up with a method for binding molecules to eventually create polymers. Had a little can of sodium metal balls in liquid and all sorts of other goodies in the lab.

Link to tweet

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The Nobel Prize
@NobelPrize
BREAKING NEWS:
The 2021 #NobelPrize in Chemistry has been awarded to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.”
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5:50 AM · Oct 6, 2021

[ananda]

1. Well deserved!

Less chemical impact on the environment works for me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. The BBC report emphasizes the asymmetric aspect

Chemistry Nobel awarded for mirror-image molecules

The scientific process in question, called asymmetric organocatalysis, has made it much easier to produce asymmetric molecules - chemicals that exist in two versions, where one is a mirror image of the other.

Chemists often just want one of these mirror images - particularly when producing medicines - but it has been difficult to find efficient methods for doing this.

Some molecules with mirror versions have different properties. An example is the chemical called carvone, which has one form that smells like spearmint and a counterpart that smells like the herb, dill.

Nobel Committee member Prof Peter Somfai reasoned that, if the body can differentiate between two mirror images, the same might be true for drugs used to treat illnesses. In other words, different versions of the same molecule might have different effects when ingested.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-58814418

The Nobel site:

The discovery being awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 has taken molecular construction to an entirely new level. It has not only made chemistry greener, but also made it much easier to produce asymmetric molecules. During chemical construction a situation often arises in which two molecules can form, which – just like our hands – are each other’s mirror image. Chemists often just want one of these mirror images, particularly when producing pharmaceuticals, but it has been difficult to find efficient methods for doing this. The concept developed by Benjamin List and David MacMillan – asymmetric organocatalysis – is as simple as it is brilliant. The fact is that many people have wondered why we didn’t think of it earlier.
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With his experiments, Benjamin List not only demonstrated that proline is an efficient catalyst, but also that this amino acid can drive asymmetric catalysis. Of the two possible mirror images, it was much more common for one of them to form than the other.

Unlike the researchers who had previously tested proline as a catalyst, Benjamin List understood the enormous potential it could have. Compared to both metals and enzymes, proline is a dream tool for chemists. It is a very simple, cheap and environmentally-friendly molecule. When he published his discovery in February 2000, List described asymmetric catalysis with organic molecules as a new concept with many opportunities: “The design and screening of these catalysts is one of our future aims”.
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Organocatalysis has had a significant impact on pharmaceutical research, which frequently requires asymmetric catalysis. Until chemists could conduct asymmetric catalysis, many pharmaceuticals contained both mirror images of a molecule; one of these was active, while the other could sometimes have unwanted effects. A catastrophic example of this was the thalidomide scandal in the 1960s, in which one mirror image of the thalidomide pharmaceutical caused serious deformities in thousands of developing human embryos.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2021/popular-information/

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Sounds like they are referencing the enantiomers

i.e., the L- and D- types.

And it is true, often only one of the structures is desirable and chemically important and when synthesizing you end up with both and have to find a way to isolate the desired one.

[LudwigPastorius]

4. A win for "top down" nano engineering...

But, I still wouldn’t bet against Drexler’s assemblers from taking the long game.

Congratulations to MacMillan and List.