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News Release
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
NIH Grantee Wins 2010 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to National Institutes of Health (NIH) grantee Ei-ichi Negishi, Ph.D., of Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. Dr. Negishi shares the award with Richard F. Heck, Ph.D., of the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware and Akira Suzuki, Ph.D., of Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan. The three researchers are honored for developing complementary methods to find more efficient ways of linking carbon atoms together to build complex molecules.
"The methodology developed by these stellar scientists has broad implications for the medical, electronic, and agricultural fields," said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. "It has already allowed chemists to synthesize compounds to fight the herpes virus, HIV, and colon cancer."
Dr. Negishi has received more than $6.5 million in support from the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) since 1979.
"Carbon-carbon bonds are like the frame of a house — you have to get them right for the structure to be functional and useful," said NIGMS Director Jeremy M. Berg, Ph.D. "By developing more precise and efficient methods for making these bonds, the scientists selected for the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry have created a remarkably powerful tool for synthesizing a wide range of useful chemicals."
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