The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 to Professor David MacMillan FRS CorrFRSE, jointly with Professor Benjamin List, for their development of a precise new tool for molecular construction: organocatalysis. This has had a great impact on pharmaceutical research and has made chemistry greener.
Professor MacMillan was interviewed on the Nobel Prize’s official YouTube channel, discussing his work and reaction to receiving the prize.
If you think about it, the stuff that should never work is where all the good stuff is. Knowledge is incredibly important, there’s always parts of knowledge which are overstated or underappreciated and so there’s definitely things which people would never work that have a fantastic chance of getting there.
Professor David MacMillan FRS CorrFRSE