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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