Nobel Prize In Chemistry 2021:
Two scientists have been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on building molecules that are mirror images of one another.
- German-born Benjamin List and Briton David MacMillan (Born in Bellshill, United Kingdom and Professor at Princeton University, USA) were announced as the winners at an event in Stockholm.
- Their chemical toolkit has been used for discovering new drugs and making molecules that can capture light in solar cells.
- The winners will share the prize money of 10 million Swedish kroner (1,135.54 million US Dollars).
- The technique, 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.
