Benjamin List: Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to German molecule researchers

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Nobel Prize medal with the portrait of Alfred Nobel

Photo: Kay Nietfeld / picture alliance / dpa

The Nobel Prize for the development of mRNA vaccines for combating the corona pandemic did not materialize this year.

The award goes to the German chemist Benjamin List and the Briton David MacMillan.

The two are recognized for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis.

Last year, the award went to the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the US scientist Jennifer Doudna.

They had developed the so-called Crispr-Cas9 gene scissors.

A total of 112 Nobel Prizes have been awarded in the chemistry category since 1901.

A maximum of three people can be awarded per year.

So far, seven women had received the award.

British biochemist Frederick Sanger got it twice, in 1958 and 1980.

On Tuesday, just like last year, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to a German.

The Hamburg climate scientist Klaus Hasselmann received the award together with the Japanese researcher Syukuro Manabe and the Italian Giorgio Parisi for their contribution to climate research and the development of complex climate models.

The Nobel Prize winners for medicine were announced on Monday.

This time, this award goes to David Julius (USA) and Ardem Patapoutian, who was born in Lebanon.

The two researchers discovered cell receptors through which people perceive temperatures and touch.

The Nobel Prize for Literature will be awarded on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the Economics Award on Monday.

As in the previous year, the Nobel Prizes are endowed with ten million Swedish crowns (around 980,000 euros) per category.

The prestigious Nobel medals are traditionally awarded on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of the prize donor and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel.

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