Nobel Prize

Just now the most intensive development is aimed at conjugated polymers in their un-doped, semiconductive state. This is because it was discovered ten years ago that some conjugated polymers exhibit electro-luminescence, they glow when a voltages passes through them.      Many applications are predicted for luminescent plastic. We shall soon be seeing the first practical…

Contents:  » These pages are based on material from the 2000 Nobel Poster for Chemistry.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2000 jointly to Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa “for the discovery and development of conductive polymers”. Alan Heeger, Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for showing how plastic can be…

Plastics are polymers, molecules formed of many identical units bound to each other like pearls in a necklace. For a polymer to be electrically conductive it must “imitate” a metal – the electrons in the bonds must be freely mobile and not bound fast to the atoms. One condition for this is that the polymer…

Editors: Professors Bertil Andersson and Britt-Marie Sjöberg, Arrhenius Laboratories for Natural Sciences, University of Stockholm, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden Illustrator: Karin Feltzin, Stockholm, Sweden Photos: M. Marsland, Yale University, University of Colorado, Boulder Printed by: Tryckindustri AB, Solna Copyright © , Information Department, Box 50005, S-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden, Tel. +46-8-673 95 00, Fax +46-8-15…

1835 The Swede Jöns Jacob Berzelius describes a catalyst as a substance which can breathe life into slumbering chemical reactions. 1868 Friedrich Miescher, Switzerland isolates nucleic acids from white blood cells obtained from discarded bandages. 1877 Wilhelm Kuhne, Germany introduces the term “enzyme” and distinguishes between enzymes and bacteria. 1893 Wilhelm Ostwald, Latvia classifies enzymes…

Sidney Altman and Thomas Cech have independently studied how the genetic code is transferred from DNA to RNA. They knew, however, that part of the genetic information is not required and must be removed from RNA before the RNA molecule can be utilized by the cell. While searching for the catalysts of RNA maturation, Altman…

The genetic information flows from the DNA in our genetic material via RNA to proteins, which in turn construct cells with different functions. This principle is called the central dogma of the chemistry of life. It was previously believed that the nucleic acids DNA and RNA serve solely as carriers of the genetic information, whereas…

Normally chemical reactions do not proceed spontaneously, but require the help of a catalyst.     A catalyst accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being changed. For example, the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to produce water requires the addition of the metal platinum. These days we encounter the concept of a catalyst most often in connection…

Scientific American (1986) Vol 255, 76-84. Trends in Biochemical Sciences (1989) Vol 11, 515-518. Journal of the American Medical Association (1988) Vol 260, 3030-3034. Advances in Enzymology (1989) Vol 62, 1-36. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, (press release).