Nobel Prize

Most chemicals that have an important role in biology exist as a pair of almost identical twins. These twins, called chiral enantiomers, contain exactly the same atoms, but they appear as mirror images that do not fit on top of each other, like placing your left hand on top of your right hand. Such a…

  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001                   The word chiral derives from the Greek word ceir (cheir), meaning hand. Our hands are chiral – the right hand is a mirror image of the left – as are most of life’s molecules such as (R)-alanine and (S)-alanine,…

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  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001               The substances used as the starting point for these syntheses are in general not chiral. The trick is to make the product chiral. This is done using a chiral catalyst molecule. Suppose we compare this molecule with a left hand. A…

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  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001                   Information on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001, The Age of the Molecule, N. Hall, Ed., Royal Society of Chemistry, London, 1999 Classics in Total Synthesis, K.C. Nicolaou and E.J. Sorensen, VCH, Weinheim, 1996 Asymmetric Catalysis in Organic Synthesis,…

I was born in Taunton, Massachusetts on June 1, 1917, but I actually grew up in nearby New Bedford. My family background was heavily slanted toward business and seafaring matters. I can’t think of any relatives that ever went into science. My family gave me the best in education. To my father, business was the…

  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001                     (Nobel Prize 1901) was one of the first to realize that molecules are three-dimensional. This year’s Nobel Prize has its roots in research carried out by the first Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, J. H. van ‘t Hoff. In…

  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2001                   (R)-alanine R refers to the Latin word rectus, meaning right. (S)-alanine S refers to the Latin word sinister, meaning left. When alanine is produced in a laboratory under normal conditions, a mixture is obtained, half of which consists of…

I was born on September 3, 1938 in a suburb of Kobe (now Ashiya), Japan, the first son of Kaneki and Suzuko Noyori. Our family moved to Kobe soon afterwards. I grew up with two younger brothers and a sister in a pleasant city blessed by beautiful natural surroundings. Except for a short period at…