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Chemistry Nobel awarded for mirror-image molecules Two scientists have been awarded the 2021 Nobel

Chemistry Nobel awarded for mirror-image molecules Two scientists have been awarded the 2021 Nobel

Chemistry Nobel awarded for mirror-image molecules

Two scientists have been awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on building molecules that are mirror images of one another.

German-born Benjamin List and Briton David MacMillan were announced as the winners at an event in Stockholm.

Their chemical toolkit has been used in the development of new drugs and to make molecules that can capture light in solar cells.

The winners will share the prize money of 10 million krona (£842,611).

Commenting on this year's award, Nobel Committee member Prof Peter Somfai, from Sweden's Lund University, said: "We have a new tool in organic chemistry, and this is of the greatest benefit to humankind."

The Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel founded the prizes in his will, written a year before his death in 1896.

A total of 187 individuals have received the chemistry prize since it was first awarded in 1901.

Only seven of these laureates have been women. One person, the British biochemist Frederick Sanger, won the prize twice - in 1958 and 1980.

The country that has had most chemistry laureates is the United States, with 72 winners. Germany and the UK share second place with 34 laureates each.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58814418