2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 6 October 2021.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Benjamin List was born in 1968 in Frankfurt-on-the-Main, Germany, and is affiliated with Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr. David W.C. MacMillan was born in 1968 in Bellshill, United Kingdom, and is affiliated with Princeton University, Princeton.

Why it matters

The two chemists developed a new way of building molecules using small organic catalysts, which is cheaper and more environmentally friendly. MacMillan was born in Bellshill, Scotland.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.