The German Benjamin List and the British David Macmillan have developed reagents that improve the synthesis of organic compounds, opening one of the tracks of “green chemistry”.
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If the Jury of the Nobel Physiology and Medicine did not want to celebrate the Vaccine Revolution at RNA Messenger too early, their chemistry colleagues, who could have been “stealing” this price, both such vaccines contain Biochemical innovations, abstained. Wednesday, October 6, they decided to crown another revolution, launched by German Benjamin List (Max-Planck Institute of Mülheim) and the Scottish David MacMillan (Princeton University), both born in 1968, who independently invented A new way of synthesizing molecules. The second winner is even at the origin of the name of this new field of research: the “asymmetric organocatalysis”, that is the art and how to accelerate chemical reactions using catalysts selective organics. These last three words ask everyone to stop there for taking the measurement of these breakthroughs.
“Catalysis” first, which means that a small amount of chemical is added to a mixture to facilitate marriages between reagents. The auxiliary participates, but reappears at the end of the reaction. Proof of the importance of this concept, seven Nobel chemistry prices have already been awarded before it to catalysis reactions.
Next, which emphasizes that these new catalysts are carbon composed, such as biological material. Before the work of these two chemists, two large families of catalysts existed. Those who come from the living, so organic, like enzymes, large proteins that realize chemical prowess in our cells in synthesizing, eliminating, assembling a pile of molecules. But these enzymes are fragile, forcing special conditions of manipulation, delicate for industrial processes.
The other family is that of metals, therefore non-organic, whose most famous representatives are platinum or palladium, which in the exhaust pots of the cars reduce the harmfulness of the gases emitted, for example. This time, it’s the cost, scarcity, or even toxicity that limit their use.
remains the third word, “selective”. Molecules, assemblies of several carbon atoms, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen …, have a shape in space. Sometimes this shape and its image in a mirror, such as the right hand and the left hand, do not overlap. A boxing glove with a right hand does not go on the left hand. This so-called chiral property is not anodine. Two molecules of the same chemical formula, but images from each other in a mirror, can feel one of the curry, the other mint, or orange for one, lemon for the other. Worse, one can be hallucinogenic and the other no. Or toxic or beneficial, as the sadly famous example of the Thalidomide sedative in the 1960s, whose wrong form has caused congenital malformations.
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