Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden announced the 2021 Nobel Prize laureates in Chemistry. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 was awarded jointly to Benjamin List and David W.C. MacMillan for their development of a precise new tool for molecular construction organocatalysis. In 2000 they, independent of each other, developed a third type of catalysis. It is called asymmetric organocatalysis and builds upon small organic molecules.

“This concept for catalysis is as simple as it is ingenious, and the fact is that many people have wondered why we didn’t think of it earlier,” said Johan Aqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.