Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to 2 chemists for tools to build molecules

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Wednesday that German Benjamin List and Scottish-born David MacMillan won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing new tools that can help make drugs less expensively and in a more environmentally-friendly way — by building molecules.

They were awarded the 10-million Swedish crown, or US$1.14 million, prize for their separate work on asymmetric organocatalysis, which the award-giving body said was a "new and ingenious tool for molecule building."

Catalysts are molecules that remain stable while enabling or speeding up chemical reactions performed in labs or large industrial reactors.

List, in a press conference after winning the award, recalled how he and his wife were enjoying time off in Amsterdam when they got the call. He also said MacMillan was qually in disbelief when he spoke with him later. List described the subject of his work as "close to magic."

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