Carbon Is So Hot Right Now: Chemistry Nobel Awarded for Carbon-Bonding Technique
Chemistry Nobel Honorees, 2010 University of Delaware, Purdue University, Hokkaido University First graphene, now this: Carbon is just the hottest element on the block these days. The 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has just been awarded to three chemists who have come up with a technique that allows them to build carbon-based molecules as complex as those found in nature. Richard Heck (of the University of Delaware), El-ichi Negishi (of Purdue University) and Akira Suzuki (of Hokkaido University in Japan) all developed a process known as palladium-catalyzed cross coupling. This technique allows for incredibly complex synthetic carbon-carbon bonds without all the by-products created by older methods. The new technique has some pretty amazing implications for both medicine and technology. Discodermolide, a molecule copied from a Caribbean sea sponge's poison, would have been impossible to create without this cross-coupling--and discodermolide shows some pretty fantastic potential as a cancer-fighting drug. Certain parts of...