2001 Chemistry Nobel Prize
By: Rachel Radke, Soham Rawal & Nehal Shahanawaz
Who Won?
William S Knowles (1/4 Prize)
Ryoji Noyori (1/4 Prize)
K Barry Sharpless (1/2 Prize)
William S Knowles
- Date of Birth: June 1, 1917
- Place of Birth: Taunton, MA
- Date of Death: June 13, 2012
- Place of Death: Chesterfield, MO
- Education: Boarding school; Harvard University; Columbia University
- Scientific Field of Study: Industrial Chemistry, Organic Chemistry
- Interesting Facts: He likes the outdoors; He came from a family primarily interested in business
Ryoji Noyori
- Date of Birth: September 3, 1938
- Place of Birth: Kobe, Japan
- Education: Kyoto University; Harvard University
- Place of Work When Awarded the Prize: Nagoya University; Nagoya, Japan
- Scientific Field of Study: Industrial Chemistry; Organic Chemistry
- Interesting Facts: In middle school, his father took him to a public conference on the topic of "nylon"; He enjoyed playing "judo", a traditional Japanese sport
K Barry Sharpless
- Date of Birth: April 28, 1941
- Place of Birth: Philadelphia, PA
- Education: Friends' Central School; Stanford University; Harvard University; Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm; Technical University of Munich; Catholic University Louvain, Belgium; Wesleyan University
- Place of Work When Awarded the Prize: The Scripps Research Institute; La Jolla, CA
- Scientific Field of Study: Industrial Chemistry, Organic Chemistry
- Interesting Facts: He lost his vision in one eye after a lab accident while an assistant professor at MIT
What Did They Do?
Important Terms:
- Chirality: Handedness; left or right
- Enantiomers: Molecules that are mirror images of one another; they cannot be placed on top of one another and give the same molecule
- Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis: Allows chemists to steer reactions towards one of the two symmetrical products
Chirality
There is a right and left side
Enantiomers
The two sides reflect each other
Catalytic Asymmetric Synthesis
Choose one thing over the other
Experiments & Lab Work
- The researchers studied reactions that, under normal circumstances, produce an equal mixture of two products with symmetrical structures
- Known as chiral products, these molecules are mirror images of each other, but can have very different properties
- Sharpless added oxygen to carbon atom which molds to create a wide variety of materials and drugs
- Knowles, Noyori and Sharpless have been awarded the prize for developing techniques that tailor reactions so that only one of the two chiral molecules is produced
Results
- The techniques are now widely used in industry, particularly to manufacture pure pharmaceuticals
- Sharpless' work was used to create an alcohol called allylic alcohol which is very important to creating other chemicals and materials
- Hydrogen is added to a reaction which allows one side to be favored instead of the probability of two different results
- Industrially, an amino acid called L-DOPA does the same thing as the hydrogen in controlling the outcome
This process created a drug that treats Parkinson's Disease
Why Did They Win?
- They solved a critical issue because one molecule could be obtained even though there was previously the possibility of two results
- It is important that drugs have the intended properties or else they will not achieve the desired result
- In the 1960s, a drug was administered to pregnant women for morning-sickness and instead caused birth defects because the two different mirrored molecules have different properties
- This process helped to create a drug for Parkinson's Disease
- There is potential for their findings to create other chemicals and materials