The Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to architects of metal-organic structures

Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar Mr. Yaghi received the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday “for the development of metallo-organic structures”.

Why did the Nobel Committee declared having received the award?

Scientists are responsible for developing new large -scale molecular structures through which gases and other chemicals can circulate freely. These structures, known as metallo-organic structures, have a wide range of uses, including airwater collection, toxic gas capture and carbon dioxide trapping.

Their experiences, which started in the 1980s, laid the foundations for the development of thousands of other metal-organic structures.

“Some of them could help resolve some of the greatest challenges in humanity,” said the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, announcing the award.

Who are the winners?

Richard Robson is a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, where he has been teaching since 1966.

Susumu Kitagwa obtained his doctorate. In 1979 at the University of Kyoto in Japan, where he teaches today.

Omar Mr. Yaghi obtained his doctorate. From the University of Illinois to Urbana-Champaign and is a professor at the University of California in Berkeley.

It was Dr. Robson who experienced metalo-organic structures for the first time in 1989, when he combined copper ions with four-arms molecules, the committee said. The result was a kind of crystal with large cavities, indicating that the molecules could easily enter and get out of the frame.

But the structure was unstable and quickly collapsed. This initial experience was developed by Dr. Kitagawa and Dr. Yaghi, whose work from 1992 to 2003 helped stabilize the framework created by Dr. Robson, said the Committee.

Who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2024?

The prize was awarded to Demis Hassabis, John Jumper and David Baker for their work demonstrating the potential of artificial intelligence and other technologies to predict the shape of proteins and invent new ones.

Who else has won a Nobel Prize this year?

• Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi received the prize for physiology or medicine on Monday for their discoveries on peripheral immune tolerance – the system which explains how the immune system prevents undesirable cells from attacking tissues and organs.

• John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis received the prize for physics on Tuesday for having shown that two properties of quantum mechanics, the physical laws which govern the subatomic domain, could be observed in a system large enough to be seen in the naked eye.

When will the other Nobel Prize winners announced?

The chemistry prize is the third of the six Nobel Prize winners awarded this year. Each prize rewards the revolutionary contributions of an individual or an organization in a specific field.

• The Nobel Prize in literature will be awarded Thursday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, Han Kang, better known for his novel “Le Vegetaire”, became the first South Korean writer to receive this award.

• The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Friday by the Norwegian Norwegian Institute of Oslo. Last year, the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo, a popular movement of atomic bomb survivors, received the prize “for its efforts aimed at reaching a world without nuclear weapons”.

• Next week, the Nobel Prize Commemorative Economic Sciences will be awarded Monday by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden in Stockholm. Last year, Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson were honored for their research on how institutions shape the countries that become rich and prosperous – and the way these structures were born.

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