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American, two Japanese share Nobel for chemical tool

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[image: The winners of the 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry are projected on a
screen during the announcement in Stockholm October 6, 2010. REUTERS/Janerik
Henriksson/Scanpix Sweden]

By Patrick Lannin and Adam Cox

STOCKHOLM | Wed Oct 6, 2010 8:10am EDT

(Reuters) - A U.S. and two Japan <http://www.reuters.com/places/japan>ese
scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for inventing new
ways to bind carbon atoms 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-catalyzed cross-coupling," the Nobel Committee for
Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

"Palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling is used in research worldwide, as well
as in the commercial production of, for example, pharmaceuticals and
molecules used in the electronics industry," the committee said.

Such chemicals include one 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.

Heck, now with the University of Delaware in the United States, developed
his work on palladium as a catalyst in the 1960s and early 1970s, while the
other two came through with their variants of the same process in the late
1970s.

Negishi, who is at Purdue University in the United States, 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."

Suzuki, of Hokkaido University in northern Japan, was also pleased and said
science was important for his country.

"I don't know how much longer I'll live, but I want to continue to work to
help young people," he told a news conference in Hokkaido.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan welcomed the news his two countrymen had
won the prize. "I hope this encourages more young people and children to say
'I'll work hard to win a Nobel prize'," he told reporters in Tokyo.

Joseph Francisco, president of the American Chemical Society and himself a
professor at Purdue, said the three worked in parallel for years. "They have
just played off of each other," Francisco said in a telephone interview.

NEW CATALYSTS

"Professors Negishi and Suzuki and Professor Heck have developed new
catalysts for doing specific types of reactions that connect new atoms and
connect new functional groups to allow a broader array of new compounds to
be made."

"It revolutionizes the kinds of techniques that chemists have available to
make new medicines and new plastics and new materials," he added.

The prize does not come as a surprise, Francisco said, because the work is
so fundamental and significant.
--
Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co