Chemistry

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…

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  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2005             Carbon compounds of different shapes and sizes build up all life on earth, but they can also be produced artificially. This is called organic synthesis and is central in chemistry. Here molecules are tailored and built in the service of mankind. The…

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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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Biographical

I was born at home in rural Kentucky in 1942, in a house that my father, Howard, had built. He did most of the construction himself and built it on land that his father had given him when he married my mother Faye. In some places, my birthplace is listed as Calvert City and in…

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Press release

17 October 1978 has decided to award the 1978 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Dr Peter Mitchell, Glynn Research Laboratories, Bodmin, Cornwall, UK, for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory. NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY FOR BIOLOGICAL ENERGY TRANSFER Mitchell’s research has been carried out within…

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Speed read

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…

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Press release

German 10. Oktober 2000 hat beschlossen, den Nobelpreis in Chemie für das Jahr 2000 gemeinsam zu verleihen an Alan J. HeegerUniversity of California at Santa Barbara, USA Alan G. MacDiarmidUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA Hideki ShirakawaUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA “für die Entdeckung und Entwicklung von leitenden Polymeren” Kunststoff, der Elektrizität leitet Wir haben gelernt,…

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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…

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