Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Ever wondered who made all those scientific discoveries? Well...many of the pioneers of science are recognised by the Nobel committee and if you've studied chemistry to almost any level you should recognise one or two of the scientists who won the Novel Prize in Chemistry below! Read the results of our Nobel Poll, which asked - should biological discoveries be ineligible for the Novel chemistry prize? Want to know about the Nobel Prize fro Physics or the Nobel Prize for Medicine?

2010 Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi, Akira Suzuki for carbon-coupling reactions

2009 Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, Thomas A. Steitz, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA, Ada E. Yonath, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".

2008 Osamu Shimomura, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, USA and Boston University Medical School, MA, USA, Martin Chalfie, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA and Roger Y. Tsien, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP".

2007 Gerhard Ertl - pioneering work on surface chemistry

2006 Roger Kornberg - RNA (like father, like son)

2005 Yves Chauvin Robert H. Grubbs Richard R. Schrock - metathesis in organic synthesis

2004 Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, and Irwin Rose - ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation

2003 Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon - cell membrane channels

2002 John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka, and Kurt Wüthrich - biological NMR and MS

2001 William S. Knowles, Ryoji Noyori, and K. Barry Sharpless - organic catalysts

2000 Alan Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid, and Hideki Shirakawa - plastic electronics (conducting polymers)

1999 Ahmed Zewail - femtosecond spectroscopy

1998 Walter Kohn and John Pople - theoretical chemistry

1997 Paul D. Boyer, John E. Walker, and Jens C. Skou - ATP and ATPase

1996 Robert F. Curl Jr., Sir Harold Kroto, and Richard E. Smalley - fullerenes

1995 Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina, and F. Sherwood Rowland - ozone layer

1994 George A. Olah - carbocation chemistry

1993 Kary B. Mullis and Michael Smith - DNA and proteins

1992 Rudolph A. Marcus - electron transfer reactions

1991 Richard R. Ernst - NMR spectroscopy

1990 Elias James Corey - organic synthesis

1989 Sidney Altman and Thomas R. Cech - catalytic properties of RNA

1988 Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber, and Hartmut Michel - photosynthesis

1987 Donald J. Cram, Jean-Marie Lehn, and Charles J. Pedersen - supramolecular chemistry

1986 Dudley R. Herschbach, Yuan T. Lee, and John C. Polanyi - reaction dynamics

1985 Herbert A. Hauptman, and Jerome Karle - crystallography

1984 Bruce Merrifield - solid-state peptide and protein synthesis

1983 Henry Taube - electron transfer in metal complexes

1982 Aaron Klug - crystallographic electron microscopy for proteins and nucleic acids

1981 Kenichi Fukui and Roald Hoffmann - reaction mechanisms

1980 Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger - DNA and nucleic acids

1979 Herbert C. Brown, and Georg Wittig - boron and phosphorus in organic chemistry

1978 Peter Mitchell - chemiosmotic theory

1977 Ilya Prigogine - thermodynamics of non-equilibrium systems

1976 William Lipscomb - boranes and bonding

1975 John Cornforth and Vladimir Prelog - stereochemistry

1974 Paul J. Flory - macromolecules

1973 Ernst Otto Fischer and Geoffrey Wilkinson - organometallic sandwich compounds

1972 Christian Anfinsen, Stanford Moore, and William H. Stein - ribonuclease

1971 Gerhard Herzberg - free radicals

1970 Luis Leloir - sugar nucleotides

1969 Derek Barton and Odd Hassel - applications of chemical conformation

1968 Lars Onsager - irreversible reactions (Onsager reactions)

1967 Manfred Eigen, Ronald G.W. Norrish, and George Porter - fast chemical reactions

1966 Robert S. Mulliken - molecular orbitals

1965 Robert B. Woodward - organic synthesis

1964 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin crystallography of biomolecules

1963 Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta - polymers

1962 Max F. Perutz and John C. Kendrew - globular protein structures

1961 Melvin Calvin - plants and carbon dioxide

1960 Willard F. Libby carbon dating

1959 Jaroslav Heyrovsky - polarography

1958 Frederick Sanger - structure of insulin

1957 Lord Alexander R. Todd - nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes

1956 Sir Cyril Hinshelwood and Nikolay Semenov - reaction mechanisms

1955 Vincent du Vigneaud - sulfur and polypeptides

1954 Linus Pauling - chemical bonds

1953 Hermann Staudinger - macromolecules

1952 Archer J.P. Martin and Richard L.M. Synge - partition chromatography

1951 Edwin M. McMillan and Glenn T. Seaborg - elemental discoveries

1950 Otto Diels and Kurt Alder - diene synthesis (Diels-Alder reaction)

1949 William F. Giauque - low temperature thermodynamics

1948 Arne Tiselius - electrophoresis (serum proteins)

1947 Sir Robert Robinson -alkaloids

1946 James B. Sumner, John H. Northrop and Wendell M. Stanley - crystallisation and purification of enzymes, viruses

1945 Artturi Virtanen - fodder preservation

1944 Otto Hahn - nuclear fission

1943 George de Hevesy - isotopic tracers

1939 Adolf Butenandt and Leopold Ruzicka - sex hormones higher polymethylenes and terpenes

1938 Richard Kuhn - carotenoids and vitamins

1937 Norman Haworth and Paul Karrer - vitamin C, carotenoids, flavins and vitamins A and B2

1936 Peter Debye - molecular structure

1935 Frédéric Joliot and Irène Joliot-Curie - synthesis of new radioactive elements

1934 Harold C. Urey - heavy hydrogen

1932 Irving Langmuir - surface chemistry

1931 Carl Bosch and Friedrich Bergius - high pressure chemistry

1930 Hans Fischer - haemin and chlorophyll

1929 Arthur Hardon and Hans von Euler-Chelpin - fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes

1928 Adolf Windaus - sterols and vitamins

1927 Heinrich Wieland - bile acids

1926 The Svedberg - disperse systems

1925 Richard Zsigmondy - colloids

1923 Fritz Pregl - organic micro analysis

1922 Francis W. Aston - isotopes

1921 Frederick Soddy - radioactive substances isotopes

1920 Walther Nernst - thermochemistry

1918 Fritz Haber - synthesis of ammonia

1915 Richard Willstätter - chlorophyll and plant pigments

1914 Theodore W. Richards - accurate atomic weights

1913 Alfred Werner - atomic connections inorganic

1912 Victor Grignard and Paul Sabatier - Grignard reagent, organic hydrogenation

1911 Marie Curie - radium and polonium

1910 Otto Wallach - alicyclic organic compounds

1909 Wilhelm Ostwald - chemical equilibria

1908 Ernest Rutherford - elemental disintegration

1907 Eduard Buchner - biochemistry and fermentation

1906 Henri Moissan - fluorine (or flourine as it is known in some schools) Moissan electric furnace

1905 Adolf von Baeyer - organic dyes hydroaromatic compounds

1904 Sir William Ramsay - "inert" noble gases

1903 Svante Arrhenius - electrochemistry

1902 Emil Fischer - sugar and purine synthesis

1901 Jacobus H. van 't Hoff - chemical dynamics and osmosis

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