Archive for October, 2007

Very early tomorrow morning, some lucky biologist will receive a call that he’s won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Just kidding—it will probably be a medical doctor or a physicist.

When Roger Kornberg won the Nobel last year for transcription crystallography, a stink erupted not over whether his work was worthy of recognition, but whether it was chemistry.  But that’s old news. The big story this week is this year’s Nobel, and I know that the person who still reads this blog daily despite the fact that it’s never updated is interested in hearing revised odds for tomorrow’s winner.

I’m kind of torn about my final pick. On one hand, I’m thinking about adopting the same approach I used pre-2005 when I guessed that metathesis would win every year. My new perennial guess would be GFP/fluorescent probes, because I’m still of the opinion that these guys absolutely deserve to win it. It’s less a question of “if” and more a question of “when”—GFP and similar probes are ubiquitous in research nowadays.

On the other hand, given the stink made in the media over biology getting shoe-horned into the chemistry prize last year, I think the Swedes might feel some pressure to pick a pure chemist this year (Palladium couplings, anyone?). As Excimer points out, the stars might be aligned for the more physical achievements this time around due to the composition of the Nobel committee. That, plus the fact that the last two prizes have been organic and biological, means that this year’s prize stands a good chance of having some element of physical flavor, which GFP has none of.

So, in a nutshell, just about anyone could win the Nobel this year. My pick is GFP, but I expect to be surprised.

Now, back to the odds. I’ve revised them a little bit from earlier this year, thanks to reader input and personal changes of heart. Remember that these numbers address the question of who will win the Prize, not who should win it. As always, feel free to share your criticism in the comments. Also, my judgment is very probably impaired due to the fact that I’ve been inhaling a large quantity of thiols over the past several months.  Forgive me.

The Field (everything not listed below), 3-1
Molecular Studies of Gene Recognition, Ptashne, 15-1
Nuclear Hormone Signaling, Chambon/Evans/Jensen, 15-1
Fluorescent Probes/GFP, Tsien/Prasher/Shimomura, 15-1
Modern Surface Chemistry, Somorjai/Ertl/Whitesides/Nuzzo/+/–, 15-1
Transition-Metal-Catalyzed Cross-Couplings, Suzuki/Heck/Sonogashira/Tsuji/+/–, 17-1
Instrumentation/Techniques in Genomics, Venter/+, 19-1
Biological Membrane Vesicles, Rothman/Schekman/+, 19-1
Techniques in DNA Synthesis, Caruthers/Hood/+, 19-1
Molecular Structure of the Ribosome, Steitz/Moore/Yonath/+/–, 29-1
Telomeres & Telomerases, Blackburn/Greider/Szostak, 29-1
Application of Lasers to the Study of Chemical Reactions, Zare, 39-1
Bioinorganic Chemistry, Lippard/Holm/Gray/+/–, 39-1
Mechanistic Enzymology, Walsh/Knowles/Abeles, 49-1
Combinatorial Chemistry/DOS, Schreiber/+, 49-1
Pigments of Life, Battersby/+, 49-1
Global Warming, Thatcher/Gore, 99-1
Development of the Birth Control Pill, Djerassi, 99-1
Development of Chemical Biology, Schultz/Schreiber/+, 99-1
Molecular Modeling and Assorted Applications, Karplus/Houk/Schleyer/+/–, 99-1
Contributions to Organic Synthesis, Evans/Danishefsky/Nicolaou/Ley/Trost/Stork/Wender/Kishi/Overman/+/–, 149-1
Fluorocarbons, Dupont/Curran/–, 199-1
Dendrimers, Frechet/Tomalia/+, 199-1
Application of NMR to Organic Chemistry, Roberts, 199-1
Understanding of Organic Stereochemistry, Mislow, 199-1
Mechanical Bonds and Applications, Sauvage/Stoddart/+, 199-1
Self-Assembly Whitesides/Nuzzo/Stang/+/–, 199-1
Nobel Gas Reactivity, Bartlett/+, 199-1
Tissue Engineering, Langer/+, 199-1
Contributions to Bioorganic Chemistry, Breslow/Eschenmoser/+, 199-1
Molecular Recognition, Dervan/+, 399-1
Development of Nanotechnology, Lieber/Whitesides/Alivisatos/Seeman/+/–, 399-1
Astrochemistry, Oka, 399-1
Zeolites, Flanigan, 399-1
Molecular Machines, Stoddart/Tour/+/–, 499-1
Studies in the Origin of Life, Miller/Orgel/+/–, 99999-1

Past Awards & the “Pre-Nobels”
Past Nobel Prizes in Chemistry
Lasker Award for Basic Research
Wolf Prize in Chemistry
Welch Award in Chemistry
Kyoto Prize
Von Hippel Award
Science Magazine’s Breakthroughs of the Year

Stories
The History of GFP
History of Pd-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling Reactions
History of Telomeres and Telomerases
A Really Biased History of the Global Warming Issue
History of Noble Gas Compounds

Buzz in the Blogosphere
ChemBark: 2007-1
Derek Lowe, In the Pipeline: 2005, 2006, 2007
Sceptical Chymist: 2006
Curious Wavefunction: 2006, 2007
Endless Frontier: 2006-1, 2006-2, 2006-3
Carbon-Based Curiosities: 2007
The Chem Blog: 2007

Hello friends.  Remember me?  It’s your ol’ buddy, Paul Bracher.

You’re probably asking yourself, “What brings this guy back from the dead?”  Well, when a postdoc in our lab showed me what arrived in the mail, not only did I roll over in my grave, I decided to resurrect everybody’s favorite chemistry game: “What’s Wrong with this Picture?”

The following 52-page brochure arrived courtesy of Oxford University Press with the following cover.  That’s right…COVER:

Oh. My. God.  The real question is: What’s right with this picture?  Not much.  There are messed up bond angles, aryl Texas carbons, acyl Texas carbons, Rhode-Island carbons, bizzare peroxides, Texas oxygens, Texas nitrogens, and the list goes on.   

What the hell is wrong with these people and why the hell is the ACS logo on this piece of garbage?  The O.U.P. editors should be drawn and quartered, and their heads should be displayed on pikes outside of ACS headquarters in Washington.

As if the front cover didn’t offer enough entertainment, the back cover has the following unintentionally humorous statement:

xford (sic) University Press, Inc. publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education.

Hooray for excellence.  Anyway, this weekend I’ll probably post on the upcoming Nobel Prize announcement (Oct. 10th).  After that, I might go back into hibernation.  We’ll see.