Nobel in chemistry honors pair for new way to make molecules

By DAVID KEYTON and FRANK JORDANS
Associated Press

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two scientists have won the Nobel Prize for chemistry for finding an “ingenious” new way to build molecules that can be used to make everything from medicines to food flavorings. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Wednesday that the work of Benjamin List of Germany and Scotland-born David W.C. MacMillan has already had a significant impact on pharmaceutical research and made chemistry “greener.” Making molecules requires linking individual atoms together in specific arrangement. It is a difficult and slow task. Until beginning of the millennium, chemists had only two methods to speed up the process. That all changed in 2000, when List and MacMillan independently reported that small organic molecules can be used to do the same job as big enzymes and metal catalysts.