2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to William Knowles, Ryoji Noyori and K. Barry Sharpless. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 10 October 2001.

The citation

Half of the prize goes jointly to William Knowles and Ryoji Noyori "for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions". Half of the prize goes to K. Barry Sharpless "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions".

The laureates

William Knowles was born in 1917 in Taunton, the United States. Ryoji Noyori was born in 1938 in Kobe, Japan, and is affiliated with Nagoya University, Nagoya. K. Barry Sharpless was born in 1941 in Philadelphia, the United States, and is affiliated with The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla.

Why it matters

Many molecules come in left and right-handed forms, and only one form may be useful as a medicine. The laureates developed catalysts that make just one form, a technique now used to manufacture drugs.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.