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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021

187 points by _Microft 5y ago

refurb 5y ago
I haven’t been in the lab in a while but David MacMillan was already a legend back then. His work has become a core innovation in organic chemistry so not surprising he gets a Nobel. And nice to see the Nobel in Chemistry go to a chemist not a biologist!
amelius 5y ago
The monetary award corresponding to the Nobel Prize is only 0.0005% of the net worth of Jeff Bezos. The societal value of Amazon must be huge ...
- melling 5y ago
  That’s sort of an absurd comparison. Some rich guy 125 years ago… Anyway, it would be great, however, if society (we!) did value science, research, etc much more. We could collectively decide to cure cancer(s). We could collectively decide to create a better material than plastic. We could collectively decide to create better batteries so renewables become more feasible. We could collectively develop safer nuclear power… We could do such much more..
  - amelius 5y ago
    > That’s sort of an absurd comparison. Making the comparison would be absurd only if the difference in payoff wasn't so absurd.
- taneq 5y ago
  That’s a specious comparison. Nobody awarded Bezos his wealth.
- ed_balls 5y ago
  it's a bad idea to compare cash to a number in a computer which estimate share value (taking future cash flow into account)
  - joelbluminator 5y ago
    What? Besos can sell his stocks in a few months and turn it into cash. Even if he can't sell everything, let's say he can "only" get 50B in a few months. Eventually he will be able to sell it all if he wants to, there are buyers. Even his ex wife is now one of the richest women in the world so...
- hallqv 5y ago
  Would I argue that the societal value of Amazon is actually huge (AUC-wise). Amazon positively impacts all of it's employees, consumers as well as other companies (my company wouldn't exists if AWS hadn't paved the wave for cheap cloud computing). Anyway, it is certainly a mistake to equate generating socieltal value with financial gains. In many settings there is a strong positive correlation (Amazon IMO), others where it's weak (research) and yet others where it's negative (drug dealing).
_Microft 5y ago
There is a section on the page called "Read more about this year’s prize" that contains links to a technical and a more accessible description that might easily be missed. If you want to know more, here are they for your convenience. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistry... https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistr...
- hikerclimber1 5y ago
  Everything is subjective. Especially laws.
- irthomasthomas 5y ago
  Thanks for this. Btw, wtf is up with the banned account reply here? Very weird spam.
  - Chris2048 5y ago
    If you see the accounts previous replies, it's many of the same comment on multiple posts. Perhaps a lazy attempt at automatic comment-karma farming?
ryan93 5y ago
Why hasn’t Harry gray gotten a Nobel?
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  Which prize would you have taken away from this timeline's winners to give to him instead?
  - ryan93 5y ago
    They only gave two prizes. Third could have gone to him
peyloride 5y ago
It would be really nice if someone can ELI5 this.
peyloride 5y ago
It would be nice if someone can ELI5 this.
- _Microft 5y ago
  Catalysts make reactions go faster and are not consumed during the reaction. There are molecules that are mirror images of one another. It was thought that there were only two types of catalysts that could help with those: enzymes and metal catalysts. The laureates discovered a third type that is easier to work with and outperforms the other methods. It is in wide use now. (Edit: that turned out to be pretty ELI5 actually. Proceeds to build mirrored molecules from Lego bricks...)
- Greek0 5y ago
  Organic synthesis is about making new molecules that haven't existed before. That's important for developing new drugs, improved batteries, better plastics, etc. Organic molecules are networks of atoms, with both a distinct connectivity pattern, and a specific 3D orientation [1] of the atoms to each other. See e.g. the Wikipedia page of Lipitor[2] a picture of the connectivity pattern. We build these molecules through chemical reactions. Over time, we have become pretty good at creating the connectivity patterns we want. However, achieving the correct 3D arrangement is still challenging. List and MacMillan developed new chemical reactions that enable us to get both the connectivity, and the 3D aspect right. Such new methods are frequent Nobel contenders, and won e.g. in 2001 with Knowles/Noyori/Sharpless. As for how these reactions work: it is true that they are catalyst-based and that catalysts speed up reactions, but that perspective is a bit misleading. The key point is that without catalysts, these reactions would not happen at all. So the catalysts List&MacMillan found accelerate some desirable reactions so much that they turn from "practically doesn't happen at all" to "done in an hour". Congratulations to the outstanding work, and to the Nobel price! [1]: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry) for a deeper look [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atorvastatin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atorvastatin [3]: For a deeper look at the chemistry, check out https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistry... and https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistr... -- also shared by _Microft
ChemSpider 5y ago
"Institute for coal research" - German science marketing really leaves a lot to be desired. Never would I have guessed that inside such a lab top science happens.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  I consider it a feature and not a bug that we don't slap hollywood-esque name onto research. it studies carbon/coal, it's the coal research centre, it does what is says on the label marketing is how you get 'autopilots' driving over people (a label that also happens to be banned here in advertisement)
- geoalchimista 5y ago
  Coal and oil, when not burned for energy, are raw materials for making a lot of essential chemicals.
- _Microft 5y ago
  The name dates back to 1912 when the institute was founded. Today it is run by Max-Planck-Society, a top-notch research association. The last time someone at a Max Planck institute received a Nobel Prize before this one was ... yesterday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society#Nobel_Laureates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society#Nobel_Laure...
- refurb 5y ago
  If anything that speaks to the longevity and roots of the institute. I’m guessing it was formed way back. Indeed, 1912. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_for_Coal_Research https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_for_Coa... Keep in mind coal research was HUGE in organic chemistry. It was a major source of precursors like aromatic hydrocarbons which fed the dye industry which was the origination of organic chemistry (it led to the sulfonamide antibiotics). Germany absolutely dominated organic chemistry in the late 1800s/early 1900s. It was the place to be to do organic chemistry. Many of the top organic chemistry journals today (Angewandte Chemie) are still topic tier journals for researchers. That’s the history of the institute.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
coldcode 5y ago
Sometimes I wish I had started/completed my Chemistry PhD 4 decades ago, about the right time for a Nobel... Instead I wrote code the whole time. No Nobel for that.
- strikelaserclaw 5y ago
  there are probably tons of people who completed a chemistry phd in that time frame who will never get a nobel.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    If we assume the average weight of a scientist is 80kg, there are 12.5 chemistry PhDs in a ton.
  - belval 5y ago
    In this case "a ton" is an understatement, getting a Nobel requires the right mix of excellent research, significant discovery and a healthy dose of luck/timing. Inverting the comment that you were replying to it's akin to saying "I wish I had finished my software engineer degree and made a billion dollar startup instead of getting a chemistry PhD".
aazaa 5y ago
> “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis” The prize is about artificial catalysts. A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed. Another way to speed reactions up is to heat them, but that consumes energy and often leads to by-products that must be removed and disposed of. The "asymmetric" part has to do with one kind of by-product. Some reactions produce 50% of a by-product that must be separated out and disposed of. This happens because some molecules have 3D structure that's different than its mirror image. Think of the way that certain objects like bottle caps and screws only turn one way to tighten. Molecules can have that property (including many drugs you may have taken), and if the handedness is wrong, in many applications, it's a by-product and/or poison. An asymmetric catalyst can make molecules of one handedness selectively, saving material, money, and energy. The "organocatalysis" part has to do with what the catalyst is made of. Prior to the awardee's research, catalysts tended to contain metal atoms. A few Nobels have been awarded for catalytic processes that use metals. So metals are great in principle, but in practice have issues. Some metals are linked to toxicity at trace levels. So when preparing drugs, you need to be very careful about purifying out the metal contaminants. Palladium is an example of a very versatile catalytic metal that causes problems during drug manufacture. Metals can also be quite expensive. Platinum and Rhodium are used in both chemical manufacture and in automobile catalytic converters. The price of Rhodium hit $25,000/oz recently. Not all metals are this expensive, but the cost and availability are often a problem. The awarded work uses catalysts that don't contain metals. Instead, the catalysts contain the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and possibly some other non-metal atoms. In other words, these catalysts are made of the same kinds of atoms as life. (Enzymes catalyze biological reactions.) So now there's a link between biological catalysis and artificial catalysis that didn't exist before. This work solved a number of practical problems, really went against dogma at the time, and opened up an important area of research that intersects with big questions like the origins of life.
- loufe 5y ago
  Fantastic summary, thank you for taking the time.
- superposeur 5y ago
  Thanks for this clear account. This proves that it is possible (at least occasionally) to describe a chemistry project using ordinary language to a non-chemist. By contrast, every single chemistry poster session or talk seems instead to consist of inscrutable walls of long technical terms and impossibly convoluted flow charts. I’ve often wondered whether this really all makes perfect sense to chemists themselves? Like, if I were to surreptitiously change one syllable out of a 10-syllable word, or reverse a couple of the arrows on a flow chart, would anyone in the audience notice? If not, then why is the information being conveyed in this way, seemingly without any effort at comprehensibility? Edit: don’t mean to condescend to chemists. The question is a genuine one. Does it really have to be so inaccessible from start to finish? Maybe yes is the answer, that’s the nature of the thing. Physics is not like that, for instance.
supperburg 5y ago
Has anyone been to the Nobel ceremony? Is it possible for a layman to go?
newacct81 5y ago
I’m confused how this is related to climate change?
- karol 5y ago
  It doesn't.
- siver_john 5y ago
  I think you may be thinking of the physics Nobel Prize which is work related to climate change, the chemistry has no direct relation.
sydthrowaway 5y ago
What it's like to win the prize to ensure you will be remembered forever. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/04/science/where-where-you-nobel-prize-call-stories.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-nobel-2021&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&context=storylines-toplinks https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/04/science/where...
cecilpl 5y ago
I'm surprised that it's only MacMillan and List for organocatalysis. There's plenty of others that come to mind, like Jacobsen. Regarding MacMillan, his student used proline (which opened the whole proline organocatalysis area) and he said he had "no idea why she did that experiment". He definitely guides his students well.
- regitempus 5y ago
  Can you elaborate on your second paragraph or link to the full story?
- alpineidyll3 5y ago
  I dealt with the man a fair bit and can say he is widely reviled as a sociopath.
sorenso 5y ago
MacMillian could very well win a second nobel prize for photoredox chemistry somewhere down the line too.
- eganp 5y ago
  Somewhat surprised asymmetric organocatalysis was awarded over asymmetric photocatalysis or photoredox chemistry. Photocatalysis is newer, has more demonstrated use cases, and holds more promise.

187 points by _Microft 5y ago

I haven’t been in the lab in a while but David MacMillan was already a legend back then. His work has become a core innovation in organic chemistry so not surprising he gets a Nobel. And nice to see the Nobel in Chemistry go to a chemist not a biologist!

amelius 5y ago

The monetary award corresponding to the Nobel Prize is only 0.0005% of the net worth of Jeff Bezos. The societal value of Amazon must be huge ...

melling 5y ago
That’s sort of an absurd comparison. Some rich guy 125 years ago… Anyway, it would be great, however, if society (we!) did value science, research, etc much more. We could collectively decide to cure cancer(s). We could collectively decide to create a better material than plastic. We could collectively decide to create better batteries so renewables become more feasible. We could collectively develop safer nuclear power… We could do such much more..
- amelius 5y ago
  > That’s sort of an absurd comparison. Making the comparison would be absurd only if the difference in payoff wasn't so absurd.
taneq 5y ago
That’s a specious comparison. Nobody awarded Bezos his wealth.
ed_balls 5y ago
it's a bad idea to compare cash to a number in a computer which estimate share value (taking future cash flow into account)
- joelbluminator 5y ago
  What? Besos can sell his stocks in a few months and turn it into cash. Even if he can't sell everything, let's say he can "only" get 50B in a few months. Eventually he will be able to sell it all if he wants to, there are buyers. Even his ex wife is now one of the richest women in the world so...
hallqv 5y ago
Would I argue that the societal value of Amazon is actually huge (AUC-wise). Amazon positively impacts all of it's employees, consumers as well as other companies (my company wouldn't exists if AWS hadn't paved the wave for cheap cloud computing). Anyway, it is certainly a mistake to equate generating socieltal value with financial gains. In many settings there is a strong positive correlation (Amazon IMO), others where it's weak (research) and yet others where it's negative (drug dealing).

_Microft 5y ago

There is a section on the page called "Read more about this year’s prize" that contains links to a technical and a more accessible description that might easily be missed. If you want to know more, here are they for your convenience. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistry... https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistr...

hikerclimber1 5y ago
Everything is subjective. Especially laws.
irthomasthomas 5y ago
Thanks for this. Btw, wtf is up with the banned account reply here? Very weird spam.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  If you see the accounts previous replies, it's many of the same comment on multiple posts. Perhaps a lazy attempt at automatic comment-karma farming?

ryan93 5y ago

Why hasn’t Harry gray gotten a Nobel?

bigbillheck 5y ago
Which prize would you have taken away from this timeline's winners to give to him instead?
- ryan93 5y ago
  They only gave two prizes. Third could have gone to him

peyloride 5y ago

It would be really nice if someone can ELI5 this.

peyloride 5y ago

It would be nice if someone can ELI5 this.

_Microft 5y ago
Catalysts make reactions go faster and are not consumed during the reaction. There are molecules that are mirror images of one another. It was thought that there were only two types of catalysts that could help with those: enzymes and metal catalysts. The laureates discovered a third type that is easier to work with and outperforms the other methods. It is in wide use now. (Edit: that turned out to be pretty ELI5 actually. Proceeds to build mirrored molecules from Lego bricks...)
Greek0 5y ago
Organic synthesis is about making new molecules that haven't existed before. That's important for developing new drugs, improved batteries, better plastics, etc. Organic molecules are networks of atoms, with both a distinct connectivity pattern, and a specific 3D orientation [1] of the atoms to each other. See e.g. the Wikipedia page of Lipitor[2] a picture of the connectivity pattern. We build these molecules through chemical reactions. Over time, we have become pretty good at creating the connectivity patterns we want. However, achieving the correct 3D arrangement is still challenging. List and MacMillan developed new chemical reactions that enable us to get both the connectivity, and the 3D aspect right. Such new methods are frequent Nobel contenders, and won e.g. in 2001 with Knowles/Noyori/Sharpless. As for how these reactions work: it is true that they are catalyst-based and that catalysts speed up reactions, but that perspective is a bit misleading. The key point is that without catalysts, these reactions would not happen at all. So the catalysts List&MacMillan found accelerate some desirable reactions so much that they turn from "practically doesn't happen at all" to "done in an hour". Congratulations to the outstanding work, and to the Nobel price! [1]: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chirality_(chemistry) for a deeper look [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atorvastatin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atorvastatin [3]: For a deeper look at the chemistry, check out https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/popular-chemistry... and https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistryprize2021.pdf https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/advanced-chemistr... -- also shared by _Microft

ChemSpider 5y ago

"Institute for coal research" - German science marketing really leaves a lot to be desired. Never would I have guessed that inside such a lab top science happens.

Barrin92 5y ago
I consider it a feature and not a bug that we don't slap hollywood-esque name onto research. it studies carbon/coal, it's the coal research centre, it does what is says on the label marketing is how you get 'autopilots' driving over people (a label that also happens to be banned here in advertisement)
geoalchimista 5y ago
Coal and oil, when not burned for energy, are raw materials for making a lot of essential chemicals.
_Microft 5y ago
The name dates back to 1912 when the institute was founded. Today it is run by Max-Planck-Society, a top-notch research association. The last time someone at a Max Planck institute received a Nobel Prize before this one was ... yesterday. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society#Nobel_Laureates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Society#Nobel_Laure...
refurb 5y ago
If anything that speaks to the longevity and roots of the institute. I’m guessing it was formed way back. Indeed, 1912. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_for_Coal_Research https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck_Institute_for_Coa... Keep in mind coal research was HUGE in organic chemistry. It was a major source of precursors like aromatic hydrocarbons which fed the dye industry which was the origination of organic chemistry (it led to the sulfonamide antibiotics). Germany absolutely dominated organic chemistry in the late 1800s/early 1900s. It was the place to be to do organic chemistry. Many of the top organic chemistry journals today (Angewandte Chemie) are still topic tier journals for researchers. That’s the history of the institute.
DoreenMichele 5y ago

coldcode 5y ago

Sometimes I wish I had started/completed my Chemistry PhD 4 decades ago, about the right time for a Nobel... Instead I wrote code the whole time. No Nobel for that.

strikelaserclaw 5y ago
there are probably tons of people who completed a chemistry phd in that time frame who will never get a nobel.
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  If we assume the average weight of a scientist is 80kg, there are 12.5 chemistry PhDs in a ton.
- belval 5y ago
  In this case "a ton" is an understatement, getting a Nobel requires the right mix of excellent research, significant discovery and a healthy dose of luck/timing. Inverting the comment that you were replying to it's akin to saying "I wish I had finished my software engineer degree and made a billion dollar startup instead of getting a chemistry PhD".

aazaa 5y ago

> “for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis” The prize is about artificial catalysts. A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a reaction without being consumed. Another way to speed reactions up is to heat them, but that consumes energy and often leads to by-products that must be removed and disposed of. The "asymmetric" part has to do with one kind of by-product. Some reactions produce 50% of a by-product that must be separated out and disposed of. This happens because some molecules have 3D structure that's different than its mirror image. Think of the way that certain objects like bottle caps and screws only turn one way to tighten. Molecules can have that property (including many drugs you may have taken), and if the handedness is wrong, in many applications, it's a by-product and/or poison. An asymmetric catalyst can make molecules of one handedness selectively, saving material, money, and energy. The "organocatalysis" part has to do with what the catalyst is made of. Prior to the awardee's research, catalysts tended to contain metal atoms. A few Nobels have been awarded for catalytic processes that use metals. So metals are great in principle, but in practice have issues. Some metals are linked to toxicity at trace levels. So when preparing drugs, you need to be very careful about purifying out the metal contaminants. Palladium is an example of a very versatile catalytic metal that causes problems during drug manufacture. Metals can also be quite expensive. Platinum and Rhodium are used in both chemical manufacture and in automobile catalytic converters. The price of Rhodium hit $25,000/oz recently. Not all metals are this expensive, but the cost and availability are often a problem. The awarded work uses catalysts that don't contain metals. Instead, the catalysts contain the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and possibly some other non-metal atoms. In other words, these catalysts are made of the same kinds of atoms as life. (Enzymes catalyze biological reactions.) So now there's a link between biological catalysis and artificial catalysis that didn't exist before. This work solved a number of practical problems, really went against dogma at the time, and opened up an important area of research that intersects with big questions like the origins of life.

loufe 5y ago
Fantastic summary, thank you for taking the time.
superposeur 5y ago
Thanks for this clear account. This proves that it is possible (at least occasionally) to describe a chemistry project using ordinary language to a non-chemist. By contrast, every single chemistry poster session or talk seems instead to consist of inscrutable walls of long technical terms and impossibly convoluted flow charts. I’ve often wondered whether this really all makes perfect sense to chemists themselves? Like, if I were to surreptitiously change one syllable out of a 10-syllable word, or reverse a couple of the arrows on a flow chart, would anyone in the audience notice? If not, then why is the information being conveyed in this way, seemingly without any effort at comprehensibility? Edit: don’t mean to condescend to chemists. The question is a genuine one. Does it really have to be so inaccessible from start to finish? Maybe yes is the answer, that’s the nature of the thing. Physics is not like that, for instance.

supperburg 5y ago

Has anyone been to the Nobel ceremony? Is it possible for a layman to go?

newacct81 5y ago

I’m confused how this is related to climate change?

karol 5y ago
It doesn't.
siver_john 5y ago
I think you may be thinking of the physics Nobel Prize which is work related to climate change, the chemistry has no direct relation.

sydthrowaway 5y ago

What it's like to win the prize to ensure you will be remembered forever. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/04/science/where-where-you-nobel-prize-call-stories.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-nobel-2021&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&context=storylines-toplinks https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/04/science/where...

cecilpl 5y ago

I'm surprised that it's only MacMillan and List for organocatalysis. There's plenty of others that come to mind, like Jacobsen. Regarding MacMillan, his student used proline (which opened the whole proline organocatalysis area) and he said he had "no idea why she did that experiment". He definitely guides his students well.

regitempus 5y ago
Can you elaborate on your second paragraph or link to the full story?
alpineidyll3 5y ago
I dealt with the man a fair bit and can say he is widely reviled as a sociopath.

sorenso 5y ago

MacMillian could very well win a second nobel prize for photoredox chemistry somewhere down the line too.

eganp 5y ago
Somewhat surprised asymmetric organocatalysis was awarded over asymmetric photocatalysis or photoredox chemistry. Photocatalysis is newer, has more demonstrated use cases, and holds more promise.