Chemistry professor Ei-ichi Negishi gestures as he speaks during a news conference after he was awarded a share in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry October 6, 2010 in West Lafayette, Indiana.
Credit: AFP
STOCKHOLM: Three scientists shared the 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for forging a toolkit to manipulate carbon atoms, paving the way for new drugs to fight cancer and for revolutionary plastics.
Richard Heck of the United States and Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki of Japan were hailed for producing "great art in a test tube."
The trio separately made outstanding contributions in organic chemistry, a field whose basis is carbon, one of the essential atoms of life and also of innumerable industrial synthetics.
Organic chemistry “an art form”
"It is important to emphasise the great significance their discoveries have for both academic and industrial research and in the production of fine chemicals - including pharmaceuticals, agricultural chemicals and high-tech materials - that benefit society," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
Through their work, organic chemistry has developed into "an art form, where scientists produce marvellous chemical creations in their test tubes," it said.
Heck, 79, retired in 1989 from the University of Delaware in the United States; Negishi, 75, was also based in the United States, at Perdue University in Indiana; Suzuki, 80, was based at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.
Lead to HIV-fighting compounds
The trio developed a process known as palladium-catalysed cross coupling, a means of knitting carbon atoms together so that they form a stable ‘skeleton’ for organic molecules.
It has allowed chemists to synthesise compounds to fight colon cancer, the herpes virus and HIV, as well as smarter plastics that are used in consumer applications, such as ultra-thin computer monitors.
The discoveries "have had a great impact on academic research, the development of new drugs and materials, and are used in many industrial chemical processes for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and other biologically active compounds," the academy said.
Organoborons made practical
The Nobel has been awarded on four previous occasions for breakthroughs in organic chemistry - in 1912, 1950, 1979 and 2005.
In the 1960s, Heck laid the groundwork for coupling between carbon atoms by using a catalyser, or chemical to promote the process.
This was finetuned in 1977 by Negishi, who used a field of compounds known as organohalides, and taken a step further by Suzuki, who found a practical way to carry out the process using so-called organoborons.
