Nobel Prize In Chemistry Honours ‘Greener' Way To Build Molecules

Benjamin List & David MacMillan win the coveted award

STOCKHOLM: Two scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for finding an ingenious new way to build molecules that can be used to make everything from medicines to food flavourings.

The work of Benjamin List of Germany and Scotlandborn David WC MacMillan has allowed scientists to produce those molecules more cheaply, efficiently, safely and with significantly less environmental impact.

It’s already benefiting humankind greatly, said Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede, a member of the Nobel panel.

Making molecules that require linking individual atoms together in specific arrangements is a difficult and slow task. Until the beginning of the millennium, chemists had only two methods or catalysts to speed up the process.