The Handy Chemistry Answer Book (2014)

1901—Jacobus Henricus van’t Hoff (the Netherlands) wins for “discovery of the laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions.” The first Nobel Prize ever awarded went to van’t Hoff for his discoveries surrounding osmotic pressure and chemical equilibrium. If a solution of sugar water was separated from a volume of pure water by a membrane that allowed water, but not sugar, to pass, van’t Hoff discovered that additional water would force its way across the membrane until an equilibrium was established. This results in a greater pressure on the side to which the water is moving, and this pressure is known as osmotic pressure.

1902—Hermann Emil Fischer (Germany) for “his work on sugar and purine syntheses.” Fischer showed that various molecules from plants and animals, which were initially not believed to be related, were in fact structurally similar. He went on to show that various sugars could be made in the lab from simple chemicals like urea. With the ability to make sugar molecules, he proceeded to establish the three dimensional structure of every known sugar.

1903—Svante August Arrhenius (Sweden) for “his electrolytic theory of dissociation” Arrhenius began studying as a graduate student at the University of Uppsala how much electricity solutions of various molecules could conduct. He correctly proposed that solution of salts were conductive because the salts formed charged particles (later named ions), even in the absence of an electric current. His advisors weren’t very impressed, and he earned a third class degree in 1884. Arrhenius continued to develop the work, and was soon awarded the Nobel Prize for his insights.

1904—Sir William Ramsay (United Kingdom) for the “discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system.” Lord Rayleigh noted in a lecture that he measured a difference in the density of nitrogen made synthetically in the lab, and the same substance isolated from air. Ramsay followed-up on this observation, quickly isolating argon for the first time. He went on to discover neon, krypton, and xenon.

1905—Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (Germany) for “the advancement of organic chemistry and the chemical industry, through his work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds.” Baeyer was the first to synthesize indigo, which is still a widely used dye (although a different method is used to prepare it today).

1906—Henri Moissan (France) for the “investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for electric furnace called after him.” Moissan was the first to make fluorine gas (F₂), which he did by passing an electric current through a solution of KHF₂ in liquid HF. The second part of the Committee’s statement relates to his work on an electric arc furnace, which he designed to try to make synthetic diamonds.

1907—Eduard Buchner (Germany) “for his biochemical researches and his discovery of cell-free fermentation.” Buchner ground up dry yeast cells, quartz, and a form of silica known as diatomaceous earth, to release the contents of the yeast cells. He then filtered this solution and added sugar. Buchner observed that fermentation of the sugar still occurred in the absence of the whole yeast cells.

1908—Ernest Rutherford (United Kingdom, New Zealand) “for his investigations into the disintegration of the elements, and the chemistry of radioactive substances.” Rutherford’s most famous experiment, the “Gold Foil Experiment,” was actually done after he received the Nobel Prize. He was awarded the Nobel for discovering that there were multiple kinds of radioactivity (he named them alpha and beta rays—later he added gamma rays to the list), and for proposing that radioactivity was a result of the atom actually breaking apart. Until Rutherford’s work, chemists had assumed that atoms were indestructible.

1909—Wilhelm Ostwald (Germany) for “his work on catalysis and for his investigations into the fundamental principles governing chemical equilibria and rates of reaction.” Ostwald performed many experiments surrounding the strengths of acids and bases and was the first to carefully explore how reaction rates are affected by acid/base catalysis. He was actually the first to coin the term “catalysis” in the context of chemistry, and his definition of catalysis is still very much the same as the one used today. Ostwald’s work corroborated earlier studies into acid/base chemistry by Arrhenius, and his measurement of chemical reaction rates under various acidic and basic conditions placed the understanding of Brønsted-Lowry acids and bases on a more sound footing. Ostwald also expanded the scope of his study beyond acid/base catalysis, and his work led to the understanding of chemical reaction rates as we know them today. He showed that chemical reaction rates—and the factors that influenced them—were quantitatively measurable parameters.

1910—Otto Wallach (Germany) for “his services to organic chemistry and the chemical industry by his pioneer work in the field of alicyclic compounds.” Alicyclic compounds are aliphatic (meaning they have no aromatic rings) and cyclic (meaning they do have other rings). Cyclohexane is a simple example of an alicyclic compound. Wallach specifically studied terpenes, which are found in the essential oils of various plants. He was able through chemical transformation to make these liquid molecules into crystalline solids, which made them easier to study with the methods available at the time. Wallach is also known for a number of different organic reactions that all still bear his name today (Wallach rearrangement, Wallach’s rule, Wallach degradation, Leuckart-Wallach reaction).

1911—Marie Curie, née Sklodowska (Poland/France), for “the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.” Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and she is still the only person to win in multiple sciences. Curie was a professor at the University of Paris (another first—she was the first woman on the faculty), beginning in 1900, and then at the Sorbonne in 1906 (again—she was the first female professor there). In 1903 she was awarded, along with her husband, Pierre Curie, and Antoine Henri Becquerel, the Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on radiation. In 1910, Marie isolated radium for the first time by electrolysis of radium chloride in the presence of hydrogen gas. This contribution was not enough for the French Academy of Sciences to elect her to their ranks, but a year later this accomplishment was recognized with Curie’s second Nobel Prize.

1912 (two winners)—Victor Grignard (France) “for the discovery of the Grignard reagent” and Paul Sabatier (France) “for his method of hydrogenating organic compounds in the presence of finely disintegrated metals.” Grignard was recognized for his preparation and study of organic magnesium compounds, (R-MgX) which he prepared from organic halides (R-X) and magnesium metal. He discovered that these magnesium reagents can react with carbonyl groups to form new carbon-carbon bonds. Sabatier shared the Prize in 1912 with Grignard for his work on hydrogenation, or the addition of a molecule of H₂ to an organic molecule. Sabatier observed that nickel acted as a catalyst for these reactions. The Sabatier Process (the reaction of CO₂ and H₂ to form CH₄ and H₂O) continues to be a useful reaction, and NASA is investigating it as a means to generate water from CO₂ waste (from exhaling astronauts).

1913—Alfred Werner (Switzerland) for “his work on the linkage of atoms in molecules especially in inorganic chemistry.” Werner was the first to propose the correct structure of inorganic compounds like [Co(NH₃)₄Cl₂]⁺. He proposed that the cobalt ion was in the center, surrounded by the ammonia and chloride ligands, in an octahedral arrangement. This proposal was consistent with the fact that two isomers of this compound were observed, as the two chloride ligands can be arranged either 180° (trans) or 90° (cis) apart from each other.

1914—Theodore William Richards (United States) for “his accurate determinations of the atomic weight of a large number of chemical elements.” Richards was the first American to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He and his students accurately measured the atomic weight of 55 different elements and also showed that some crystalline solids can contain gases or other solutes within their lattices (technical term: occlude).

1915—Richard Martin Willstätter (Germany) “for his researches on plant pigments, especially chlorophyll.” Willstätter was a German organic chemist who studied a variety of pigments isolated from flowers and fruits. He was the first to show that chlorophyll was a mixture of two different compounds, known today as chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. These two molecules absorb slightly different wavelengths of light, so that the plant can capture more of the Sun’s energy.

1916–1917—No prizes were awarded.

1918—Fritz Haber (Germany) “for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements.” Haber was a German chemist, who developed a synthesis of ammonia (NH₃) from nitrogen (N₂) and hydrogen (H₂), along with Carl Bosch, while working at the University of Karlsruhe. Ammonia is critical to many applications, including fertilizers, explosives, and as a feedstock for other chemicals. It is estimated that because of the widespread use of chemical fertilizers about half of the nitrogen atoms in your body probably passed through the Haber-Bosch process. A significant percentage of our planet’s population couldn’t exist without this chemical process.

1919—No prize was awarded.

1920—Walther Hermann Nernst (Germany) for “his work in thermochemistry.” Nernst made several somewhat related contributions to chemistry surrounding the specific heats of compounds at very low temperatures, the use of Galvanic cells and the ability to calculate chemical affinity from thermochemical properties, and surrounding variations in chemical equilibria at different temperatures. Nernst’s most significant gift to chemistry can be stated succinctly by saying that he (and his co-workers) helped to make possible the calculation of whether a reaction will take place to a significant extent under a set of known conditions. Nernst also was the first to formulate the third law of thermodynamics.

1921—Frederick Soddy (United Kingdom) “for his contributions to our knowledge of the chemistry of radioactive substances, and his investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes.” Soddy, an English chemist, correctly explained that radioactivity of elements was due to their transmutation, or the changing of one element into another. Specifically, he demonstrated that uranium changes into radium. He also revealed the difference between alpha emission (loss of a helium nucleus, so atomic number decreases by 2) and beta emission (electron emission from the nucleus, so atomic number increases by 1). Finally, the Soddy demonstrated that radioactive elements can have more that one atomic weight, and the idea of isotopes was born.

1922—Francis William Aston (United Kingdom) “for his discovery, by means of his mass spectrograph, of isotopes in a large number of non-radioactive elements, and for his enunciation of the whole-number rule.” Following the prize in 1921 for Soddy, the Nobel Committee again recognized the importance of isotopes by selecting Aston for the prize. Aston build the first instrument capable of separating individual isotopes of a given element, which he used to identify over 200 elemental isotopes. This work led him to conclude that all isotopes of all elements have whole number masses (if one defines the major isotope of oxygen to be 16).

1923—Fritz Pregl (Austria) “for his invention of the method of micro-analysis of organic substances.” Pregl, a chemist and physician, was award the prize for his work on ways to quantitatively characterize organic molecules. In particular, he made great improvements to elemental analysis, which reveals the amount of various elements in a substance by measuring the combustion products (or, more simply: burn the stuff and see how much CO₂, H₂O, and NO are released).

1924—No prize was awarded.

1925—Richard Adolf Zsigmondy (Germany/Hungary) “for his demonstration of the heterogeneous nature of colloid solutions and for the methods he used.” Although the Nobel committee didn’t mention it by name, the “methods he used” refers to Zsigmondy’s invention of the ultramicroscope, which allowed a visible light microscope to see objects that are smaller than the wavelength of light. Zsigmondy accomplished this (literally) physically impossible task by looking at the light that scattered off of a sample, and not the light that it reflects. Using this new tool, he showed that the red color in so-called “Cranberry glass” was due to small (4 nm) particles of gold, which was of interest to his employer at the time, Schott Glass.

1926—The (Theodor) Svedberg (Sweden) “for his work on disperse systems.” Svedberg’s disperse systems were, like the previous year’s winner, colloids. Svedberg studied their absorption, diffusion, and sedimentation. He was able to produce colloidal particles to validate Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion. To accomplish this work he developed the ultracentrifuge, which he used to purify proteins. The unit used to describe the rate at which particles undergo sedimentation is now known as the svedberg (1 svedberg = 10⁻¹³ seconds = 100 femtoseconds).

1927—Heinrich Otto Wieland (Germany) “for his investigations of the constitution of the bile acids and related substances.” The bile acids are a set of steroid acids whose synthesis begins in the liver with the production of chloic acid chenodeoxycholic acid (all of which derive from cholesterol). Wieland isolated and determined the structure of a number of these biochemically significant compounds. During his career he also isolated toxins from poisonous frogs and mushrooms.

1928—Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus (Germany) for “his research into the constitution of the sterols and their connection with the vitamins.” Windaus was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering that cholesterol (a sterol) was removed to cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) through a series of several steps. One of Windaus’ doctoral students, Adolf Butenandt, was himself a Nobel laureate.

1929—Arthur Harden (United Kingdom) and Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin (Germany) “for their investigations on the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes.” Harden and Euler-Chelpin were biochemists who independently investigated fermentation processes. Harden discovered that phosphate was required for alcohol fermentation. Euler-Chelpin studied the means by which living cells produced energy by degrading sugar molecules, and the machinery that cells used to perform these reactions.

1930—Hans Fischer (Germany) “for his researches into the constitution of haemin and chlorophyll and especially for his synthesis of haemin.” Fischer was interested in biologically relevant pigments, specifically those in human bodily fluids like blood and bile, and the green color of plants. He was the first to determine the correct structure for heme B and heme S, which are iron porphyrin molecules (a large ring with four nitrogen ligands coordinated to an iron center). These red-colored molecules help transport O₂, and other important functions. He also determined the structure of chlorophyll a, which has a structure similar to that of a heme, but instead of an iron, a magnesium ion sits in the middle of the large porphyrin ring.

1931—Carl Bosch (Germany) and Friedrich Bergius (Germany) for “their contributions to the invention and development of chemical high pressure methods.” Bosch worked with Fritz Haber on the synthesis of ammonia that today bears both their names, but was not recognized in the 1918 prize with Haber. Bergius developed a process for producing liquid hydrocarbon fuel from coal. Bosch also worked on the so-called Bergius process, after Bergius sold his patents to BASF, where Bosch was working at the time. The Bergius process and the Haber-Bosch process both operate at high pressures, and both methods had significant impacts on human history.

1932—Irving Langmuir (United States) “for his discoveries and investigations in surface chemistry.” As a graduate student, Langmuir studied light bulbs, and then went on to improve vacuum pump designs. These two interests merged, in some respects, and Langmuir was able to invent the incandescent light bulb. These led to his interest in surface chemistry, after observing that a tungsten-filament (like those in a light bulb) could split H₂ on its surface, forming a single atomic layer of hydrogen atoms. The work of direct relevance to his receiving the prize, however, was his study of thin films of oil and surfactants on the surface of water. Langmuir postulated that the molecules of surfactants would orient themselves into a layer that was a single molecule thick. He went on to develop the physics to describe such thin layers, which would eventually be known as monolayers.

1933—No prize was awarded.

1934—Harold Clayton Urey (United States) “for his discovery of heavy hydrogen.” Urey received the Nobel Prize for isolation of deuterium (D₂) by distilling a sample of liquid hydrogen multiple times. He is perhaps better known (amazing that he’s better known for something other than what he received the Nobel Prize for) for his work on the Manhattan Project. Working at Columbia, Urey and his team developed a method for enriching uranium by gaseous diffusion. Finally, after WWII ended, at the University of Chicago, Urey and Stanley Miller, one of his graduate students, showed that a mixture of water, ammonia, methane, and hydrogen could produce amino acids by exposing the mixture to electricity. The experiment was designed to simulate conditions in the early days of our planet, and clearly showed that organic molecules that form the basis of all life can be made from basic inorganic building blocks … and a little spark. After Urey’s death, it was shown that over twenty different amino acids were present in the mixture, an even more remarkable result than Urey and Miller claimed in their initial publication.

1935—Frédéric Joliot (France) and Irène Curie (France) for “their synthesis of new radioactive elements.” Frédéric was an assistant of Marie Curie, who ended up marrying Marie’s daughter, Irène. The husband and wife team of Joliot and Curie collaborated on experiments investigated the effect of bombarding atoms with other particles. Specifically, they struck boron, magnesium, and aluminum atoms with alpha particles (He²⁺ ions), creating new short-lived radioactive particles.

1936—Petrus (Peter) Josephus Wilhelmus Debye (the Netherlands) for analyzing “molecular structure through his investigations on dipole moments and the diffraction of X-rays and electrons in gases.” Debye developed the theory of how electric fields affect molecules, and figured out a method to determine their dipole moments by measuring how their insulating properties and density vary with temperature. He also measured interferences of X-rays and electrons with molecules in the gas phase, along with other investigations into molecular structure, to determine the chemical structures of molecules. This work provided some of the first detailed structural characterization that allowed chemists to definitively determine the different structures of isomers (compounds of the same chemical composition but different geometrical arrangements of the atoms).

1937—Walter Norman Haworth (United Kingdom) “for his investigations on carbohydrates and vitamin C,” and Paul Karrer (Switzerland) “for his investigations on carotenoids, flavins and vitamins A and B2.” Haworth’s work on carbohydrates expanded on that done by Fischer, making significant further progress into understanding the structures of various isomers of monosaccharides and disaccharides. Prior to this work, very little was known about vitamins, carotenoids, and flavins, and these men were the first to uncover the chemical composition of these molecules. In addition to his work with sugars, Haworth also studied the composition of vitamin C. Karrer shared the prize for his work characterizing the chemical compositions of several carotenoids and flavins, as well as vitamin A and vitamin B2. Knowledge of the chemical compositions of these species provided some of the earliest insights into how they are formed and the roles they play as nutrients in the human body. Prior to their work, little was known regarding the chemistry or reactivity of these species, because their composition was not known.

1938—Richard Kuhn (Germany) “for his work on carotenoids and vitamins.” Originally the 1938 Nobel Prize nominations did not yield a suitable candidate, so the 1938 award was held until 1939, when it was awarded to Kuhn. Kuhn received the award for his work studying vitamins and carotenoids. He isolated and characterized the composition of numerous complexes, and also studied the optical properties of some of these species to differentiate those with different chemical structures. He also made significant advances in the understanding of the chemistry of vitamin B complexes, including vitamin B2 (lactoflavin or riboflavin) and vitamin B6.

1939—Adolf Friedrich Johann Butenandt (Germany) “for his work on sex hormones,” and Leopold Ruzicka (Croatia) “for his work on polymethylenes and higher terpenes.” Butenandt was the first to isolate and crystalize a compound with the characteristics of a male sex hormone by extraction from male urine. Butenandt characterized the chemical formula of this complex, and called it andosterone. It was then discovered that this compound was actually slightly different from testosterone, but Butendant and Ruzicka were both able to synthesize testosterone from andosterone. Ruzicka synthesized the same compound, andosterone, that Butenandt isolated from male urine. He too was able to convert it into the male sex hormone testosterone. Ruzicka also worked to synthesize and characterize polyterpene complexes that are related to physically and biologically important compounds, including sex hormones. Ruzicka’s work contributed greatly to the knowledge surrounding sex hormones, which, of course, are very important physiologically, and his work thus laid the ground for future investigations into the roles of these complexes.

1940–1942—No prize was awarded.

1943—George de Hevesy (Hungary) “for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes.” de Hevesy was a pioneer in using radioactive isotopes to carry out chemical studies. By using these isotopes as labels, he was able to track what was happening to the isotopes he introduced into a sample, providing unique new insights in a variety of areas. For example, by introducing radioactive sodium into a human body, he was able to track its spatial movement throughout the body, as well as its excretion from the body. He found that it after one day, blood corpuscles had lost/replaced roughly half of their sodium content. Of course, other scientists later picked up on this method and applied it themselves.

1944—Otto Hahn (Germany) “for his discovery of the fission of heavy nuclei.” Hahn’s and his colleague’s work discovered nuclear fission, and in particular that uranium could be split in a chain reaction by nuclear fission. This discovery was perhaps recognized as much for its importance as it was for its potential danger to society if not properly used and controlled, and Hahn himself was keenly aware of the potential for danger. Nonetheless, this discovery paved the way for much future research into nuclear chemistry, as well as for the development of modern nuclear reactors.

1945—Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (Finland) “for his research and inventions in agricultural and nutrition chemistry, especially for his fodder preservation method.” Virtanen was quite an interesting chemist, and he was also a farmer! His fodder preservation method made use of hydrochloric and sulphuric acids to slow the processes that normally cause fodder to ferment. He also made several other achievements in the area of nutrition/agricultural chemistry, helping to better provide nutrition to animals raised on farms.

1946—James Batcheller Sumner (United States) “for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized,” and John Howard Northrop (United States) and Wendell Meredith Stanley (United States) “for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form.” Summer was the first to provide concrete evidence that enzymes and proteins could be crystallized, paving the way for further research in this area. Northrop and his co-workers explored the conditions that led to formation of crystalline proteins, and mastered this “art,” pioneering the way for modern scientists working to crystallize proteins and viruses. Stanley demonstrated that viruses can be crystallized in the same way as proteins, and then showed that viruses are, in fact, proteins themselves.

1947—Sir Robert Robinson (United Kingdom) “for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids.” Robinson made significant advances in medicinal chemistry, both in synthesis and in gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms by which drugs work. His Nobel Prize was awarded for his work with alkaloids in particular, including quinine, cocaine, and atropine; Robinson studied and helped to understand how these types of molecules have their effects on the human body and mind.

1948—Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius (Sweden) “for his research on electrophoresis and adsorption analysis, especially for his discoveries concerning the complex nature of the serum proteins.”

1949—William Francis Giauque (United States) “for his contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics, particularly concerning the behavior of substances at extremely low temperatures.” Giauque’s work did much to prove the third law of thermodynamics (originally proposed by Nernst) and helped make it possible to calculate the free energies of formation of molecules. Much of this was made possible by experiments performed at extremely low temperatures, and Giauque can be credited for developing the methods necessary to perform these experiments at temperatures close to absolute zero. Giauque’s work explored the entropy, or disorder, associated with various forms of various substances, and he did much of the pioneering work in studying molecules at low temperatures.

1950—Otto Paul Hermann Diels and Kurt Alder (both Federal Republic of Germany) “for their discovery and development of the diene synthesis.” Diels and Alder won the prize for the developing chemical reactions that are broadly relevant in organic synthesis, and they even have a reaction named after them called the “Diels-Alder” reaction. Dienes are complexes containing a pair of conjugated carbon-carbon double bonds, which can react to form a cyclic product in a wide variety of cases. Further research into this class of reactions has found a tremendous number of applications throughout organic chemistry.

1951—Edwin Mattison McMillan and Glenn Theodore Seaborg (both United States) “for their discoveries in the chemistry of transuranium elements.” All the way back in 1934, Fermi discovered that heavier elements could be created by bombarding heavy elements with neutrons. McMillan was the first to succeed in demonstrating the existence of the transuranium elements, which are the heaviest elements on the periodic table. Seaborg expanded on this work, discovering a whole additional row of the heaviest elements on the periodic table!

1952—Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge (both United Kingdom) “for their invention of partition chromatography.” Martin and Synge won the prize for their development of the basic principles of chromatography, or the separation of chemical substances based on differences in their chemical properties (often their polarity). In their separation method, a drop of a mixture of compounds is placed on a strip of paper, and a solvent, perhaps water or an alcohol (or a mixture), is drawn up the strip of water, resulting in a separation of the compounds in the mixture. This separation occurs because each component in the mixture interacts differently with the solvent. This method has been expanded upon by a large number of later researchers, and chromatographic methods play a very important role in laboratory chemistry to this day.

1953—Hermann Staudinger (Federal Republic of Germany) “for his discoveries in the field of macromolecular chemistry.” Staudinger was among the first to propose that macromolecules (polymers) are of significant importance and play an important role in chemistry. These views were not initially well-received by many members of his field, but he was able to demonstrate experimental proof of the existence of macromolecules. Today the importance of macromolecules is widely recognized in polymer chemistry, biochemistry, and numerous other fields.

1954—Linus Carl Pauling (United States) “for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances.” Pauling made significant progress toward understanding the nature of chemical bonds, which are (obviously) relevant to virtually all chemical processes. He proposed the property of electronegativity as a means for characterizing chemical bonds, and he developed a scale for electronegativity values. Pauling’s work with X-rays also uncovered the structures of numerous molecules, and paved the road for X-ray diffraction as a characterization method for even more complex molecules. In 1963, Pauling also was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Throughout his career, Pauling was always known for working, and living, at the forefront of scientific discovery.

1955—Vincent du Vigneaud (United States) “for his work on biochemically important sulfur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone.” Du Vigneaud was known for bridging the fields of organic and biochemistry by synthesizing biochemically relevant compounds. He synthesized the first polypeptide hormone and developed knowledge of the chemistry surrounding peptides, especially those containing sulfur. In early experiments on the posterior lobe of the brain, du Vigneaud had noted the high percentage of sulfur present, prompting his career-long investigation into the correlation of sulfur with biological activity.

1956—Sir Cyril Norman Hinshelwood (United Kingdom) and Nikolay Nikolaevich Semenov (USSR) “for their researches into the mechanism of chemical reactions.” These men made numerous important discoveries regarding chemical reaction mechanisms, in particular with regard to proposing and demonstrating the importance of chain reaction mechanisms. In various instances, these two men showed that observations could be explained by invoking a chain reaction mechanism, which is a mechanism that “self-propagates” for several cycles before terminating. Among other examples, chain mechanisms were shown to be key to chemical reactions resulting in explosions.

1957—Lord (Alexander R.) Todd (United Kingdom) “for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes.” Todd laid the foundation for future research in biochemistry, genetics, and biology surrounding the structures and roles of nu-cleotides in living organisms. He established the chemical structures of nucleotides, and established the (extremely important) role of phosphorylation in biochemical processes.

1958—Frederick Sanger (United Kingdom) “for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin.” Sanger established the structure of insulin by first recognizing that it was made up of two chains of amino acids, one 31 and the other 20 residues long. He proceeded to establish the sequence of amino acids (all 51) in the two chains, thus determining the chemical composition of insulin. Insulin is a key peptide hormone that regulates glucose levels in the human body. In addition to characterizing the structure of this important hormone, Sanger in fact did much more. The methodology he applied to characterizing its structure went on to be used by numerous other scientists in many, many other situations to characterize protein structures.

1959—Jaroslav Heyrovský (Czechoslovakia) “for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis.” Heyrovský was an innovator in the field of chemical analysis, developing a polarographic method of analysis capable of analyzing the presence of virtually any species dissolved in water, and could determine the relative percentages of the species present. He did this using a method that we won’t get into here, but it relied on a fairly simple procedure involving the application of a current and measuring drops of mercury.

1960—Willard Frank Libby (United States) “for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination in archaeology, geology, geophysics, and other branches of science.” Libby developed a procedure that uses the relative abundance of carbon isotopes in a sample to determine how old it is. This procedure has been extremely useful to scientists from many fields and has played a major role in establishing the ordering of historical events, including the prehistory of humankind.

1961—Melvin Calvin (United States) “for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants.” Calvin received the prize for his work on what is today known as the Calvin Cycle, which is the process by which green plants affect the fixation of carbon dioxide, or in other words the incorporation of carbon dioxide molecules from the atmosphere into other molecules. Calvin identified that there is a close connection between the metabolism of carbohydrates and photosynthesis. This process is quite complex, involving ten different intermediates and eleven different enzymes to catalyze each step of the reaction.

1962—Max Ferdinand Perutz and John Cowdery Kendrew (both United Kingdom) “for their studies of the structures of globular proteins.” Perutz and Kendrew sought to elucidate the structures of large proteins using X-ray diffraction techniques, with a particular focus on hemoglobin and myoglobin. They took a variety of innovative approaches, including recording a huge number of X-ray diffractions (about a quarter million), incorporating heavier gold or mercury atoms at well-defined locations into the molecule, and using a computer (one that was advanced for the time) to process the large amounts of data they collected. This was quite a challenging task, as even myoglobin (the smaller molecule of the pair) contains roughly 2,600 atoms. Their work was the first to help understand the principles behind the structure of globular proteins.

1963—Karl Ziegler (Federal Republic of Germany) and Giulio Natta (Italy) “for their discoveries in the field of the chemistry and technology of high polymers.” These two great polymer scientists developed several classes of polymers, while simplifying and clarifying the mechanisms of polymerization processes. Ziegler discovered titanium complexes that can catalyze olefin polymerization reactions, and Natta developed a method for the preparation of stereoregular polymers from propylene. At the time, the Nobel committee recognized that the full implications of their work were likely not yet realized, and indeed polymer chemistry was still a relatively young field at that date. Today the work of Ziegler and Natta underpins the technology used to generate many of the plastics you encounter.

1964—Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin (United Kingdom) “for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances.” Hodgkin used X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of penicillin, vitamin B12, and a large number of other biologically relevant molecules. As the importance of computers for processing X-ray crystallographic data was increasingly being recognized, Hodgkin was noted for her exceptional ability to process the data, and the Nobel committee recognized that this talent likely played a vital role in her ability to achieve so much during her career.

1965—Robert Burns Woodward (United States) “for his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis.” Woodward made tremendous research achievements in a broad range of areas in the field of organic synthesis. He established the structures of aureomycin and terramycin (which are antibiotics), and made possible new synthetic work in this area. He also synthesized quinine, which was considered a great challenge and was used to fight malaria, and later synthesized cholesterol and cortisone. The list of synthetic achievements goes on and on, and he truly ranks among the most successful synthetic chemists ever to have graced the field. In addition to these synthetic achievements, Woodward also established the structures of a large number of important compounds.

1966—Robert S. Mulliken (United States) “for his fundamental work concerning chemical bonds and the electronic structure of molecules by the molecular orbital method.” Mulliken received the Nobel Prize in recognition of his work studying that nature of how electrons behaving in molecules, in particular for the molecular orbital approach that he developed. Molecular orbitals are formed by the overlap of the orbitals on individual atoms, and these can be used to rationalize whether bonds will exist between pairs of atoms, how strongly the pairs will be bonded, and what type of reactivity the molecule may be expected to undergo.

1967—Manfred Eigen (Federal Republic of Germany), Ronald George Wreyford Norrish (United Kingdom), and George Porter (United Kingdom) “for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equilibrium by means of very short pulses of energy.” Norrish and Porter were credited with the prize for their development of flash photolysis methods, which applied short pulses of light to initiate photochemical reactions, allowing them to study very fast chemical reactions that could not previously be observed. Eigen’s work differed in that he used sound as his form of energy to probe the chemical reactions, which is far less invasive of an approach in the sense that sound does not cause drastic changes in the behavior of the molecules being studied. Of the two methods, the flash photolysis method is much more akin to the modern spectroscopic approaches used today, while sound-based approaches did not gain as much traction.

1968—Lars Onsager (United States) “for the discovery of the reciprocal relations bearing his name, which are fundamental for the thermodynamics of irreversible processes.” Onsager received the prize for his brilliant mathematical work that allowed for a theoretical description of irreversible processes. He additionally made a large number of other contributions to physics and chemistry during his career, including developments surrounding the conductivity of solutions and flow of electrolytes, and a solution to the Ising model.

1969—Derek H. R. Barton (United Kingdom) and Odd Hassel (Norway) “for their contributions to the development of the concept of conformation and its application in chemistry.” Barton and Hassel earned the prize for their work surrounding the conformational analysis of molecules. While we draw a molecule on paper in a specific orientation and conformation, there are, in truth, typically many accessible conformations to a given molecule. This is especially true for “floppy” molecules, and these are where conformational analysis can be particularly insightful and important. Their work drew attention to the importance of rotations and other conformational changes in chemistry, particularly with regard to organic molecules. They showed that reactivity can actually be significantly influenced by the conformation of a molecule, and that conformational changes may be necessary to promote reactivity or allow for a reaction to take place.

1970—Luis F. Leloir (Argentina) “for his discovery of sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates.” Leloir discovered a substance essential for the transformation of one sugar into another, and this turned out to be a sugar bound to a nucleotide molecule (a sugar nucleotide). He soon realized that he had opened the door to a vast number of unsolved problems surrounding carbohydrate synthesis, and proceeded to pursue them with fervor. During his career, Leloir revolutionized the understanding of the synthesis and biosynthesis of sugars.

1971—Gerhard Herzberg (Canada) “for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals.” Herzberg was a famous physicist and astrophysicist, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his great achievements in molecular spectroscopy. A particular demonstration of his skill in spectroscopy was his investigations into the role of free radicals in chemical reactions. Free radicals had long been a difficult target to study, owing to their relatively short lifetimes (on the order of millionths of a second). Herzberg’s talent with spectroscopy allowed him to address this, and other similarly challenging (and interesting) problems.

1972—Christian B. Anfinsen (United States) “for his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation,” and Stanford Moore and William H. Stein (both United States) “for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active center of the ribonuclease molecule.” Together, these three scientists uncovered the structure of the ribonuclease enzyme, and they were able to gain insight into how its structure related to its reactivity. In particular, Moore and Stein were able to correlate the structure of the enzyme’s active site to its reactivity. Not only was ribonuclease an important enzyme to study, but their approach paved the way for similar studies to come.

1973—Ernst Otto Fischer (Federal Republic of Germany) and Geoffrey Wilkinson (United Kingdom) “for their pioneering work, performed independently, on the chemistry of the organometallic, so called sandwich compounds.” Fischer and Wilkinson received the prize for their role in elucidating the basic properties surrounding bonding and reactivity in organometallic complexes, with a particular focus on their work with organometallic sandwich compounds, which involve a metal center “sandwiched” between two ligands. This prize was somewhat special in that it was openly recognized that the practical implications of their work were not readily obvious, but that the knowledge surrounding organometallic chemistry gained from their work would be invaluable to chemists in the future.

1974—Paul J. Flory (United States) “for his fundamental work, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of macromolecules.” Flory contributed greatly to polymer science by developing metrics for characterizing polymers and for comparing different polymers against one another. This was a task that had often proved difficult due to the different compositions and conformational arrangements found in different polymers. He made great strides toward putting polymer science on a firm theoretical footing, which was lacking when he entered the field.

1975—John Warcup Cornforth (Australia, United Kingdom) “for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions,” and Vladimir Prelog (Yugoslavia/Switzerland) “for his research into the stereochemistry of organic molecules and reactions.” Cornforth explored the stereochemistry of enzyme catalyzed reactions by using isotopically labeled hydrogen atoms to study the geometry of their arrangement in the enzymes active site. Prelog studied how the stereochemistry of organic molecules affected their reactivity, leading to important discoveries. He also explored the stereochemistry of enzyme catalyzed reactions observing how they reacted with simple organic molecules

1976—William N. Lipscomb (United States) “for his studies on the structure of boranes illuminating problems of chemical bonding.” Boron hydride (borane) complexes participate in many interesting examples of chemical bonding, and this is due to the fact that boron possesses one less electron than carbon to donate to chemical bonds, but still often forms four-coordinate complexes. Lipscomb won the prize for his pioneering explorations of the chemistry and bonding in borane complexes using X-ray diffraction and quantum chemical calculations. He reached a level of understanding of borane complexes at which he could predict the properties and reactivity of borane complexes reasonably well, and his work led to deeper insight into the nature of the chemical bond.

1977—Ilya Prigogine (Belgium) “for his contributions to non-equilibrium thermodynamics, particularly the theory of dissipative structures.” Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is traditionally considered a particularly hard topic to address, because the assumptions one can usually make regarding the behavior of molecules are thrown out the window. Prigogine’s work expanded on existing thermodynamic theories to address systems far from equilibrium, such as when a liquid is heated rapidly from below. Prigogine demonstrate that structures called “dissipative structures” could exist under conditions far from equilibrium, and that these structures could only exist in conjunction with the surrounding environment.

1978—Peter D. Mitchell (United Kingdom) “for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory.” Mitchell received the prize for developing a theory of how electron transfer was coupled to ATP synthesis during oxidative phosphorylation and photophosphory-lation. He proposed that a gradient of proton concentration (and thus also charge) was built up across the mitochondrial membrane, and that the reverse flow of protons down the concentration gradient provided the driving force for ATP synthesis. This is what is known as the chemiosmotic theory.

1979—Herbert C. Brown (United States) and Georg Wittig (Federal Republic of Germany) “for their development of the use of boron- and phosphorus-containing compounds, respectively, into important reagents in organic synthesis.” Brown received the prize for his work with boron reagents in organic synthesis, which also led to the development of organoboranes as a class of molecules. Wittig worked with phosphorus, developing a reaction through which a carbonyl could be converted to an olefin. This reaction is today known as the Wittig reaction. The work of both Wittig and Brown resulted in the development of useful reagents that find wide application in organic synthesis even today.

1980—Paul Berg (United States) “for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA” and Walter Gilbert (United States) and Frederick Sanger (United Kingdom) “for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids.” Berg earned the prize for having been the first to design a recombinant-DNA molecule, which is to say he constructed a DNA molecule containing parts of DNA from different species. Gilbert and Sanger shared the other half of the award for their work toward the sequencing of DNA. The sequencing of DNA was initially an extremely time-consuming and expensive task, but today it is becoming more and more feasible to sequence DNA efficiently and affordably.

1981—Kenichi Fukui (Japan) and Roald Hoffmann (United States) “for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions.” Fukui can be credited for the development of frontier molecular orbital theory, which provides predictions surrounding the reactivity of compounds based on the nature of their most loosely bound electrons (or highest energy occupied orbitals), along with the nature of their lowest energy unoccupied orbitals. Hoffman had completed some significant theoretical work while working with Woodward years earlier, and had reached conclusions surrounding the relationship between chemical reactions and the symmetry of the orbitals involved in those reactions. Both of these great scientists succeeded in approaching rather difficult problems by attempting to look for generalizations, simplifications, and basic patterns that were common among their observations.

1982—Aaron Klug (United Kingdom) “for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes.” Klug expanded on the existing technology of electron microscopy to develop an approach based on mathematical processing of the images that gave higher contrast images at relatively low radiation doses and without having to apply heavy metal stains to the samples. His approach made it possible to determine the structures of important aggregates that would have previously been difficult or impossible to accurately characterize.

1983—Henry Taube (United States) “for his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes.” Taube investigated a series of ions of cobalt and chromium, finding that certain species reached chemical equilibria in solution, while others did not. A careful series of experiments demonstrated that, in some cases, a bridge was required to form between a pair of metal ions (or one of their ligands) before electron transfer could take place. In other cases, electron transfer could take place at a distance. These observations turned out to have important applications for many chemical processes, particularly in the field of biochemistry. It is also noteworthy that, at the time he won the prize, Taube had already established a strong history of being the first in the entire field of chemistry to report significant discoveries that were of great importance to the field. His importance to the field of coordination chemistry was recognized by the Nobel committee, and the following quote is from one of their reports: “There is no doubt that Henry Taube is one of the most creative research workers of our age in the field of coordination chemistry throughout its extent. He has for thirty years been at the leading edge of research in several fields and has had a decisive influence on developments.”

1984—Robert Bruce Merrifield (United States) “for his development of methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix.” Merrifield developed a simple and very clever way of synthesizing peptides or chains of nucleic acids. The method involves binding the first of the chain of (let’s say) amino acids to a polymer. The subsequent residues can then be added synthetically, and this approach turns out to be faster and yield larger quantities of the desired final product than earlier methods.

1985—Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle (both United States) “for their outstanding achievements in developing direct methods for the determination of crystal structures.” These two men won the prize for developing improved methods of analyzing crystal structure diffraction patterns to yield molecular structures. Their method was based on developing probabilistic equations relating the chemical structure to the observed diffraction patterns, and it relied on measuring many diffraction patterns to determine the molecular structure.

1986—Dudley R. Herschbach (United States), Yuan T. Lee (United States), and John C. Polanyi (Canada / Hungary) “for their contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes.” Herschbach was recognized for having developed the method of using crossed molecular beams to carry out detailed studies of chemical dynamics. Lee was initially working with Herschbach, and independently further developed the method of using crossed molecular beams to study important reactions of relatively large molecules. Polanyi developed the method of using chemiluminescence in the infrared where weak infrared emissions from recently formed molecules is measured to learn how energy is released during chemical reactions.

1987—Donald J. Cram (United States), Jean-Marie Lehn (France), and Charles J. Pedersen (United States) “for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity.” These chemists won the prize for developing/finding molecules that can “recognize” one another so that they react to form complexes in a highly specific way. They investigated the key features of these molecules that allow for such highly specific molecular recognition. In turn, they produced molecules that can mimic the highly specific recognition features of enzymes. This gave way to the area of research that is today known as host-guest chemistry or supramolecular chemistry.

1988—Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, and Hartmut Michel (all Federal Republic of Germany) “for their determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction center.” This prize was awarded for the atom-by-atom characterization of a membrane bound protein, and, in particular, one that is responsible for carrying out photosynthesis. These proteins are quite difficult to crystallize, and Michel can be credited with achieving this task. He then collaborated with Huber and Deisenhofer to unravel the details surrounding the structure of the crystallized membrane bound photosynthetic reaction center.

1989—Sidney Altman (Canada, United States) and Thomas Cech (United States) “for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA.” While RNA was already known for its role as a molecule involved in heredity and the transport of genetic information, Altman and Cech discovered that RNA can also serve biocatalytic functions. This was a completely surprising result to the scientific community. The discovery was made when RNA was put into a test tube in the absence of any protein enzymes, and the RNA began to cut itself into pieces and rejoin the pieces back together again. This observation led to the discovery of the first RNA enzymes. By the time the prize was awarded, nearly a hundred RNA enzymes had already been discovered.

1990—Elias James Corey (United States) “for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis.” Corey was awarded the Nobel Prize for his numerous important contributions to organic synthesis, including the development of theories and methods that allow for the production of biologically active natural products. This led to many pharmaceuticals becoming commercially available, and thus had a clear impact on the general public health. His research was likely so successful because he developed the principles of a methodology known as “retrosynthetic analysis,” in which one starts with the structure of the target molecule and analyzes in reverse order what bonds must be broken to generate simpler structures that one can already synthesize readily.

1991—Richard R. Ernst (Switzerland) “for his contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.” Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has proven to be a powerful tool for physical and synthetic chemists alike. It has been used to characterize the structures of simple organic complexes, complex biomolecules, and to dynamically track the progress of chemical reactions, among other applications. Ernst won the prize for his substantial contributions to increasing the sensitivity and resolution of NMR instruments. Ernst contributed to improving a wide variety of aspects of NMR spectroscopy, including both one- and two-dimensional approaches, and he also proposed a method for obtaining NMR-tomographic images, which was eventually realized.

1992—Rudolph A. Marcus (United States) “for his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems.” Marcus received the prize for his work studying electron transfer reactions, and developing the theory surrounding this elementary chemical process. The transfer of an electron between two molecules is a ubiquitous process in chemistry, and it is important to a wide range of chemical phenomenon, ranging from the conduction properties of materials, to chemical synthesis, to the capture of light by plants for the purpose of harvesting energy. Marcus completed much of the work surrounding the theory of electron transfer in the 1950s and 1960s, and he was able to explain the greatly varying rates of electron transfer observed in different chemical systems. Some aspects of his theories were difficult to confirm experimentally, and were not proven until the 1980s, which contributed to why it took so long for him to receive the Nobel Prize for his work.

1993—Kary B. Mullis (United States) “for contributions to the developments of methods within DNA-based chemistry for his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method,” and Michael Smith (Canada) “for contributions to the developments of methods within DNA-based chemistry for his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies.” Mullis was awarded the prize for developing a widely used laboratory method called the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. PCR allows the use of relatively simple lab equipment to generate millions of copies of a sample of DNA in the timespan of only a few hours. This has found diverse applications in a large number of laboratories. It can be used, for example, to generate copies of DNA from fossils of organisms that are long-since extinct. Smith shared the prize with Mullis for his work “manipulating” the genetic code. In cells, proteins are produced based on sequences of nu-cleotides contained within the organism’s DNA. These sequences dictate the sequences of amino acids that will be incorporated into a protein. Smith developed a method to selectively manipulate DNA to alter the amino acid sequences of the proteins that are produced.

1994—George A. Olah (United States / Hungary) “for his contribution to carbocation chemistry.” Carbocations are species that contain one or more positively charged carbon atoms. While these types of intermediates were postulated for years to play key roles in organic reactions, it was never believed that they could be isolated, due to the fact that they should be highly reactive. Olah managed to prepare stable carbocations through the use of extremely acidic compounds, which are actually called “superacids.” Olah’s work thus revolutionized research into carbocation chemistry, as these species could finally be characterized for the first time. This work has been very influential in better understanding the role of these important intermediates in organic chemistry.

1995—Paul J. Crutzen (the Netherlands), Mario J. Molina (Mexico / United States), and F. Sherwood Rowland (United States) “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.” Each of these researchers made important contributions toward understanding how atmospheric ozone is depleted through atmospheric reactions. Importantly, each demonstrated ways in which pollution from humans was responsible for depleting the ozone layer, and they did this by learning how atmospheric pollutants caused the breakdown of ozone. This information will hopefully continue to help us protect the ozone layer and the stability of the Earth’s climate.

1996—Robert F. Curl Jr. (United States), Sir Harold W. Kroto (United Kingdom), and Richard E. Smalley (United States) “for their discovery of fullerenes.” This Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of a new form of elemental carbon in which the atoms are arranged in a closed shell to form a ball. These three scientists worked together to make this discovery, and the resulting new form of carbon was known as a fullerene. Fullerenes are generated when carbon vapor, obtained by intense pulsed laser irradiation, condenses in the presence of an inert gas. Fullerenes of a variety of sizes are now known.

1997—Paul D. Boyer (United States) and John E. Walker (United Kingdom) “for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)” and Jens C. Skou (Denmark) “for the first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na⁺, K⁺-ATPase.” Boyer and Walker shared half of this prize for their work to understand how ATP synthase (an enzyme) catalyzes the formation of ATP. This information bears a crucial relationship to understanding how energy is stored, transferred, and used in cells. Skou received the other half of the prize for his work to discover the first ion transporting enzyme, which is responsible for keeping the balance of sodium and potassium concentrations in cells.

1998—Walter Kohn (United States) “for his development of the density-functional theory” and John A. Pople (United Kingdom) “for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry.” Kohn and Pople represent two of the founding fathers of modern computational chemistry methods. Density functional theory is a method that relies on the a function describing the spatial electron density in a molecule to calculate molecular properties, and Kohn was awarded the prize for his substantial contributions to the development of this now widely used approach. Pople also made major strides toward making computational methods reliable and accessible to a large number of chemists. In addition to his more technical achievements, Pople is responsible for developing the GAUSSIAN computational chemistry software that is probably the most widely used computational chemistry tool available today.

1999—Ahmed Zewail (Egypt / United States) “for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy.” Zewail was awarded the prize for his work using ultrafast femtosecond spectroscopy to study chemical reactions in real time (that is to say, on the timescale on which they actually take place). Zewail’s earliest experiments in this area looked at iodocyanide and sodium iodide. He was the first to be able to observe the dissociation and recombination of a chemical species as it actually took place! His great advances in spectroscopic techniques revolutionized the field, and continue to do so today.

2000—Alan J. Heeger (United States), Alan G. MacDiarmid (United States / New Zealand), and Hideki Shirakawa (Japan) “for their discovery and development of conductive polymers.” This prize was awarded for the discovery of plastics/polymers that can, under certain circumstances, be made conductive. This was quite a surprising result, since nobody ever expected plastics to be conductive materials. These plastics/polymers consist of chains of conjugated carbon-carbon double bonds (in other words, carbon-carbon double bonds that alternate with carbon-carbon single bonds). These polymers were also doped, which means that electrons were either removed or added artificially by oxidation or reduction.

2001—William S. Knowles (United States) and Ryōji Noyori (Japan) “for their work on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions” and K. Barry Sharpless (United States) “for his work on chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions.” Half of this prize was awarded to Knowles and Noyori for their work with chiral catalysts that chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions, or reactions in which two hydrogen atoms are added. This work found applications in pharmaceutical production soon after its discovery. Sharpless was awarded the other half of this prize for developing chiral catalysts to carry out oxidation reactions, which represent another important class of reactions in organic synthesis.

2002—John B. Fenn (United States) and Koichi Tanaka (Japan) “for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules for their development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules” and Kurt Wüthrich (Switzerland) “for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution.” In the past, mass spectrometry was limited to the study of relatively small or lightweight molecules. Fenn and Tanaka share half of this prize for their work in extending the technique of mass spectrometry to significantly larger biomolecules. Fenn and Takana independently developed two different methods for obtaining freely hovering protein samples appropriate for mass spectrometric analysis. Wüthrich received the other half of this prize for the use of NMR spectroscopy to determine the three-dimensional structure of biomolecules in solution. This represents a significant advance beyond crystal structure analyses, as the structure of biomolecules may differ in the crystalline and solution phases, with the solution phase structure being more relevant to their true biological function.

2003—Peter Agre (United States) “for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes for the discovery of water channels” and Roderick MacKinnon (United States) “for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels.” Agre received half of this prize for isolating a membrane protein that serves as a water channel in cells. For roughly 200 years it had been postulated that cells contained channels capable of moving water in and out of cells, but Agre was the first to finally discover a concrete example of a water channel. MacKinnon received the other half of this prize for his work on ion channels, and in particular for his characterization of the spatial structure of a potassium channel. For the first time, this allowed chemists to “see” how potassium ions flowed in and out of cells.

2004—Aaron Ciechanover (Israel), Avram Hershko (Israel), and Irwin Rose (United States) “for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation.” While the overwhelming majority of biochemical research on proteins has focused on how they are synthesized and how they function, these three researchers took a unique path and studied how cells regulate their breakdown. They discovered that proteins are broken down (and rebuilt) at a much faster rate than anyone probably would have expected. Proteins are labeled when it is time for them to be broken down, and then they are chopped up into small pieces so that they no longer function.

2005—Yves Chauvin (France), Robert H. Grubbs (United States), and Richard R. Schrock (United States) “for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis.” Chauvin, Grubbs, and Schrock shared the Prize for their work on a metal-catalyzed reaction that exchanges (metathesizes) carbon-carbon double bonds. Many of the double bonds that react with these catalysts are very strong, so a reaction that breaks both bonds of a double bond is impressive indeed. Chauvin was the first to propose a detailed mechanism for this catalyzed reaction. Grubbs and Schrock independently developed extremely active catalysts for this reaction using primarily molybdenum and ruthenium metal centers, respectively.

2006—Roger D. Kornberg (United States) “for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription.” In order for DNA to be “read” for the purpose of producing a protein, there are a couple of key steps that must take place. Kornberg received the prize for his work to elucidate the details surrounding the first key step: transcription. Transcription involves making a copy of the DNA, which is to be transferred outside the nucleus of the cell. Interestingly, Roger Kornberg’s father, Arthur Kornberg, also received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1959 for his work studying how information is transferred from one DNA molecule to another. Who would have thought that his son would go on to win a Nobel Prize for a very related piece of research?

2007—Gerhard Ertl (Germany) “for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces.” Surface chemistry is a topic of broad importance to many applied areas of chemistry. These include atmospheric chemistry (as some atmospherically relevant reactions take place at the surface of ice crystals), semiconductors, and solar energy capture, to name a few. Ertl was one of the founding fathers of modern surface science, and he played a role in developing many of the techniques used to study surfaces today. The study of well-characterized surfaces typically requires studies to be carried out under ultra-high vacuum conditions so as to avoid contamination of the surface to be studied by any gas-phase molecules that may tend to adsorb onto the surface.

2008—Osamu Shimomura (Japan), Martin Chalfie (United States), and Roger Y. Tsien (United States) “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP.” These three scientists received the prize for their work with a protein simply called green fluorescent protein, or GFP. This protein was first observed way back in 1962 in a jellyfish. It eventually became a very important molecule in the biological sciences, as clever researchers have found ways to use GFP to study otherwise invisible chemical processes. Shimomura, Chalfie, and Tsien were at the forefront of the major discoveries that led to the understanding of GFP that researchers possess today.

2009—Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (United States), Thomas A. Steitz (United States), and Ada E. Yonath (Israel) “for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.” Ramakrishnan, Steitz, and Yonath are responsible for uncovering the structure and function of the ribosome at the atomic level, and it is for that work that they share this Nobel Prize. They used X-ray crystallography to individually map each atom that makes up the ribosome; it consists of hundreds of thousands of atoms! The ribosome plays a crucial role in each cell, as it is responsible for the synthesis of proteins. On the basis of their results, these researchers have also developed models showing how antibiotics bind to the ribosome.

2010—Richard F. Heck (United States), Ei-ichi Negishi (Japan), and Akira Suzuki (Japan) “for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis.” Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki shared this prize for their development of a class of reactions called palladium-catalyzed cross couplings. These reactions are a powerful tool in organic synthesis, allowing chemists to form carbon-carbon bonds (which is generally not an easy task at all). The reaction is accomplished by having the carbon atoms first join to a common palladium center, from which point carbon-carbon bond formation can proceed.

2011—Dan Shechtman (Israel) “for the discovery of quasicrystals.” In discovering quasicrystals, Shechtman initially made some people think he was foolish and just plain wrong. Using a microscope, he found patterns of molecules that appeared to be packed in repeating patterns, but these were patterns that should not be allowed to repeat in a periodic way by simple arguments of geometry. This controversial discovery, and Shechtman’s defense of what he observed, led to his being asked to leave his research group at the time of he made the initial discovery. After fighting a long battle, he eventually reached the point where his discovery was recognized. To date, quasicrystals have not found too many important applications, but they have made scientists rethink the fundamental properties of solid matter, which is certainly a pretty big deal.

2012—Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka (both United States) “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors.” Lefkowitz and Kobilka shared this prize for their work studying a class of receptors called G-protein-coupled receptors. These play a role in how cells “sense” their environment, and especially in how cells respond to medicines, hormones, and other signaling molecules. Lefkowitz had been working in this area since the late 1960s, and Kobilka since the 1980s, but it wasn’t until 2011 that they were able to get an image of the receptor at the exact moment that a hormone activates its signaling mechanism. The prize was awarded for their collective body of work elucidating how these receptors function.