UK Today News: Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2010 – Richard Heck, Akira Suzuki and Ei-ichi Negishi Share Prize
The coveted Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2010 was won by University of Delaware/American scientist Richard Heck, along with Japanese scientists Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki, for their contribution in developing palladium– catalyzed cross coupling – a tool used in organic chemistry.
Akira Suzuki (Photo:AP)
The palladium- catalyzed cross coupling helps chemists join carbon atoms in a better way to develop complex molecules. Negishi, Suzuki and Heck will be sharing the $1.5 million award among themselves.
The 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said that the tool is ‘vastly improved’. The process is used in pharmaceuticals production and also for the molecules that are used in the electronics industry.
The start of the week saw Robert Edwards, the British scientist winning a Nobel Prize for medicine. Russian scientists, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov won the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics.
