Chemistry Nobel Prize for Benjamin List - Max-Planck

Benjamin List, Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, is honoured with the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, together with David MacMillan from Princeton University, for their work on asymmetric catalysis. They have established for the first time that small organic molecules are suitable as mediators of chemical reactions. Previously, science assumed that only enzymes and metals, including often toxic heavy metals or expensive and rare precious metals, could accelerate chemical reactions and steer them in a desired direction. The small organic molecules that Benjamin List and David MacMillan introduced as catalysts are particularly suitable for asymmetric synthesis. In this process, only one of two enantiomers is produced - these are molecules that are like the left and right hand, which means they cannot be spatially aligned. Such molecules are involved in all biological processes and also play an important role as medical agents. 


https://www.mpg.de/17662517/nobel-prize-for-chemistry-2021-benjamin-list





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