The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001

William S. Knowles

K. Barry Sharpless

Web Adapted Version of the Nobel Poster from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001  
       
 

The prize is being awarded to

Ryoji
Noyori

Photos: PRB

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is about molecules that exist in two forms that are mirror images of each other. Often it is important to produce only one of these forms because the molecules, despite being so similar, have quite different functions, in our cells, for example.

  
 
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2001 for the development of catalytic asymmetric synthesis, with one half jointly to William S. Knowles and Ryoji Noyori “for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions” and the other half to K. Barry Sharpless “for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions”.
 
 

 Contents:
| Introduction | Nature is chiral | What is catalytic asymmetric synthesis? | How does a chiral molecule function? | Chemistry becomes three-dimensional | Pioneering work | General hydrogenations | Chirally catalysed oxidations | Further reading | Credits |

Based on materials from the 2001 Nobel Poster for Chemistry
 

To cite this section
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