SWEDEN/FILE: U.S., Japanese scientists win Nobel Prize for chemical tool that may help in the fight against cancer

Record ID: 569382

  • Title: SWEDEN/FILE: U.S., Japanese scientists win Nobel Prize for chemical tool that may help in the fight against cancer
  • Date: 7th October 2010
  • Summary: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (OCTOBER 6, 2010) (REUTERS) EXTERIORS OF ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES INTERIOR/ MEMBERS OF NOBEL COMMITTEE ENTER ROOM JOURNALISTS VIEW OF NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) STAFFAN NORMARK, PERMANENT SECRETARY, THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES SAYING: "This year's prize rewards great art in a test tube. The Royal Swedish Academy of Scie
  • Embargoed: 22nd October 2010 13:00
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  • Topics: International Relations,Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA54F4J4WOP7HY02GIALU98AWDY
  • Story Text: A U.S. and two Japanese scientists won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday (October 6) for revolutionary chemical research with uses that range from fighting cancer to producing thin computer screens.
    Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki shared the prize for the development of "palladium-catalysed cross-coupling", the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at a news conference announcing the winner.
    "This year's prize rewards great art in a test tube. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry jointly to Professor Richard Heck at the University of Delaware, Newark, USA, Professor Ei-ichi Negishi, Perdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, USA and Professor Akira Suzuki at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. And the Academy citation runs for palladium-catalysed cross-coupling in organic synthesis," the Permanent Secretary at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Staffan Normark, said, reading out the committee citation.
    Negishi, who is at Purdue University in the United States, said he first started dreaming about winning the prize some 50 years ago, when he came to the United States.
    He said he was sound asleep when the academy telephoned him at 5 a.m. local time but was extremely happy to be woken.
    "This means a lot. I would be telling a lie if I wasn't thinking about this. I told someone that I began thinking -- dreaming -- about this prize half a century ago."
    Heck is with the University of Delaware in the United States, while Suzuki is at Hokkaido University in Japan.
    The committee said palladium-catalysed cross-coupling was used in research worldwide, as well as in the commercial production of, for example, pharmaceuticals and molecules used in the electronics industry.
    The tool allows scientists to build complex chemicals such as the carbon-based ones that are the basis of life. Such chemicals include one that is naturally found in small quantities in a sea sponge, which scientists aim to use to fight cancer cells.
    Thanks to the scientists' chemical tool, researchers can now artificially produce this substance, called discodermolide.
    Nobel Committee member and professor in bio-physics Astrid Graslund said the reaction could be described by using the Lego brick as an example.
    "It is about joining carbon atoms together in a way that you want to do, so if you want to say it in very simple words you could say it's like building a Lego toy and you want to join pieces together and you want to decide how and what to do with them so this is what this reaction does. You decide and it simply performs for your chemical reaction," she said.
    The prize of 10 million Swedish crowns (1.5 million United States dollars) was the third of this year's Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday (October 4) and for physics on Tuesday (October 5).
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