ARCHIV ONE
Chemistry - Asymmetric Catalysis Wins
THE 2001 NOBEL PRIZE IN Chemistry will be shared by three scientist who devised techniques for catalytic asymmetric synthesis - the use of chiral catalysts to accelerate the production of single-enantiomer compounds for pharmaceutical use and a wide range of other applications.
One-half of the approximately $950,000 prize will be split by Monsanto retiree William S. Knowles and chemistry professor Ryoji Noyori of Nagoya University, in Japan, for their work on catalytic asymmetric hudrogenation reactions. The other half goes to chemistry professor K. Barry Sharpless of Scripps Research Institute for research on catalytic asymmetric oxidations.
Physiology or Medicine - Regulators of the Cell Cycle
TWO GENETICISTS AND A BIOCHEMIST will share this year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discovering the molecular mechanisms that regulate the cell cycle" in higher organisms.
Leland H. Hartwell, 61, president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and profess or genetics at the University of Washington, will share the approximately $950,000 prize with biochemist R. Timothy Hunt, 58, and geneticist Sir Paul M. Nurse, 52. Nurse is director-general of Britain's Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, where Hunt is a principal scientist.
Physics - Cold Atoms are Hot, Hot, Hot
NOBEL PRIZES ARE FREQUENTLY awarded to older scientist, after the significance of their work has had a chance to really sink in. But the creation, a little over five years ago, of an exotic form of matter known as the Bose-Einstein condensate has so rocked the physics world that the Nobel committee awarded this year's prize in physics to a group of relative youngsters.
Physics professor Carl E. Wieman, 50, at the University of Colorado, and physicist Eric A. Cornell, 39, at the National Institute of Standards & Technology, both in Boulder, and MIT physics professor Wolfagang Ketterle, 43, will share the cash prize of approximately $950,000.
(extracted from Chemical & Engineering News, October 15, 2001)
Home