STOCKHOLM, Oct 6, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Germany's Benjamin List and US-based 
David MacMillan on Wednesday won the Nobel Chemistry Prize for developing a 
tool to build molecules which has helped make chemistry more environmentally 
friendly.

   Their tool, which they developed independently of each other in 2000, can 
be used to control and accelerate chemical reactions, exerting a big impact 
on drugs research.

   Prior to their work, scientists believed there were only two types of 
catalysts -- metals and enzymes.

   The new technique, which relies on small organic molecules and which is 
called "asymmetric organocatalysis" is widely used in pharmaceuticals, 
allowing drug makers to streamline the production of medicines for depression 
and respiratory infections, among others.

   Organocatalysts allow several steps in a production process to be 
performed in an unbroken sequence, considerably reducing waste in chemical 
manufacturing, the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 
said.

   List and MacMillan, both 53, will share the 10-million-kronor ($1.1-
million, one-million-euro) prize.

   "I thought somebody was making a joke. I was sitting at breakfast with my 
wife," List told reporters by telephone during a press conference after the 
prize was announced.

   In past years, he said his wife has joked that he should keep an eye on 
his phone for a call from Sweden.

   "But today we didn't even make the joke," List, who is a director at the 
Max Planck Institute in Germany, said.

   "It's hard to describe what you feel in that moment, but it was a very 
special moment that I will never forget."

   - 'So proud' -

   Asked about what the prize would mean for his future as a researcher, List 
promised he had "a few more plans."

   "I always like to go to the extremes. 'Can we do things that were just 
impossible before?' List told reporters. "I hope I live up to this to this 
recognition and continue discovering amazing things."

   MacMillan, born in Scotland but a professor at Princeton University in the 
US, also thought he was the target of a prank, saying he originally went back 
to sleep when he started receiving texts from Sweden early Wednesday.

   "I am shocked, and stunned and overjoyed," MacMillan said in a statement 
from Princeton University.

   "Organocatalysis was a pretty simple idea that really sparked a lot of 
different research," the professor added. 

   "The part we're just so proud of is that you don't have to have huge 
amounts of equipment and huge amounts of money to do fine things in 
chemistry."

   Explaining the award, the Academy said "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 disease."

   "This work requires catalysts, which are substances that control and 
accelerate chemical reactions, without becoming part of the final product," 
it added.

   List was the first to prove that the amino acid "proline," which he called 
his favourite catalyst, could drive an aldol reaction, which is when carbon 
atoms from two different molecules are bonded together.

   "Compared to both metals and enzymes, proline is a dream tool for 
chemists. It is a very simple, cheap and environmentally friendly molecule," 
the Academy said.

   - 'Gold rush' -

   Since their discovery, developments in the field can "almost be likened to 
a gold rush," with List and MacMillan designing "multitudes of cheap and 
stable organocatalysts, the science body noted.

   For example, in 2011, researchers were able to make the production process 
for strychnine, today mostly used as a pesticide, 7,000 times more efficient, 
reducing it from 29 chemical reactions to just 12, it said. 

   Ahead of Wednesday's announcement, analysts had said the chemistry field 
was wide open.

   According to Clarivate, which maintains a list of potential Nobel Prize 
winners, more than 70 researchers had what it takes to be considered for the 
prize, given the thousands of citations they have received in scientific 
papers.

   Last year, the Nobel went to France's Emmanuelle Charpentier and America's 
Jennifer Doudna, for developing the gene-editing technique known as CRISPR-
Cas9 -- DNA snipping "scissors".

   The Nobel season continues with the two most closely watched prizes, 
literature on Thursday and peace on Friday. The winner of the economics prize 
will be announced on Monday.

   The medicine prize kicked off the 2021 Nobel season on Monday, going to 
David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for breakthroughs that paved the way for 
the treatment of chronic pain.

   The physics prize followed Tuesday, when half was awarded to US-Japanese 
scientist Syukuro Manabe and Klaus Hasselmann for climate models, and the 
other half to Italy's Giorgio Parisi for work on the theory of disordered 
materials and random processes.