That other thing the Swedes are known for besides IKEA
October 4th, 2009 by excimerReally quick: Nobel predictions from the three of us:
Ψ*Ψ
It appears that Michael Gratzel (of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) is a serious Nobel contender. Dye-sensitized (aka Gratzel) solar cells are pretty awesome. The power conversion efficiency records are ~11-something% for liquid electrolyte DSSCs and ~8% for solid-state DSSCs, and there’s a flurry of research going on in the area. Hell, I’ve even worked on a dye-sensitized solar project. His work is useful, relevant, widespread and yet so simple you can use donuts to make the devices.
The only drawback is that the technology is still pretty young, and there are may developments yet to be made in the area. I want to see Gratzel get a Nobel, but not before Pd catalysis nets one for someone, somewhere.
LiqC
I have no clue. I was leaning towards Matyjaszewski, but the polymer dude in our lab told me he’d be very surprised if it happened. He’d definitely not be the only recipient, but rather with the assosiated RAFT people (and I don’t even know their names). Craig Hawker was mentioned in this context.
As for Gratzel, I think that DSSC are way cool, but as far as I’m aware they’re still losing to the inorganics. I’d postpone my bet on him till later. He’ll share it with Ψ*Ψ.
I’m not sure about Lerner. Antibody therapy seems super expensive. I’m unfamiliar with the work on chaperones or DNA electron transport. I agree Donna (#18 @ In the Pipeline) – if it’s Lerner/Winter, it might be physiology-medicine. Now, somebody from the office one floor below Lerner’s might find it hard to sleep on Tuesday night, but the consensus seems to be that the times for awarding TotSyn are over…
List & Macmillan? Seriously? They’re too young.
Then, just like in 2005, there are too many players in the Pd crowd. Heck-Suzuki-Sonogashira-Hartwig-Buchwald? And all of their ex-students who did the actual work and are now old and ballsy enough to demand that their names would be appended to the name reactions?
I’d throw in another possibility – Walsh/Schreiber/someone else for chemical biology…
Excimer
I don’t care. For some reason, this year I’m not getting into Wednesday Madness nearly as much as I have in previous years. I’ll be happy if they give it to, uh, a chemist. I want Richard Heck to win for practically inventing palladium cross-coupling, but I don’t think he will. It’s a big field to give it only to him, though he’s most deserving in my book.
Last year I correctly guessed “the GFP people,” this year I’ll go with “some atmospheric reaction thing relevant to global warming.”
“I don’t care”. That’s what I was gonna say.
Hooray for donuts.
BTW, is there a viable alternative to ITO? We’re sort of running out of indium.
there’s fluorinated tin oxide (FTO)…there are other conducting oxides, some of which still use indium (d’oh!)…there are carbon nanotubes embedded in a conjugated polymer matrix…and i think some people are using silver mesh.
transparency is a key issue here, somewhat less so for solar cells than for displays. people get weird about color purity. anything that’s off-yellow instead of white? yeah, they won’t buy it.
at least that’s my limited understanding. anyone more qualified to answer, wanna take a shot?
GRAPHENE!
…oh, wait. viable alternative. Well, whatever. Graphene is still awesome.
really, honestly, my pick is just “not a biologist.”
touche
I’m gonna add another prediction for me, speaking of the above: Novoselov for the discovery of graphene, which, in my opinion, is the single most significant development in chemistry in the past ten years- the sheer body of research that has been propelled due to graphene’s discovery is staggering.
Since he’s a physicist (and much of his work on graphene is crazy physics work) this could either fall into chemistry or physics.
Shared with Geim and H. A. M. S. ter Tisha?
der Tisha has already been recognized with a prize of extremely high merit. Well, so has Geim, but he should win for graphene too.
im real happy for you and imma let you finish, but heck had one of the greatest reactions of all time.
Yo Wilkinson I’m real happy for you and Imma let you finish, but Plum Pudding was one of the greatest food-based chemical model of all time.
Well, there’s at least one device prize for you today
Yep, that’s pretty awesome.
What about Mizoroki, T., he published “Heck” reaction one year before – am I right?
Heck first reported arylations of olefins with arylmetals “catalyzed” by Pd in 1968. Mizoroki first reported olefinations with aryl iodides in 1971, followed by Heck in 1972.
I knew this paper and this reaction “can be” considered as Heck-coupling if you wish, although I don’t think so, but in reality it was Pd/Ru/Rh catalyzed (in the presence of Cu salts) addition of organomercury compounds (prepared stoichiometrically) across double bond. Still, real Heck-coupling as we all know it ArX(VinylX) + cat. Pd + Vinyl was reported first by Mizoroki in 1971.
Well, no, it’s not THE Heck coupling, but it is a Pd-mediated olefination of electrophilic substituted arenes. Gotta start somewhere. Heck’s work started Pd-mediated olefinations, branched out from there, and has had a far greater influence on Pd chemistry than Mizoroki’s one paper on the coupling. I don’t think Heck should get it only for the reaction that bears his name alone.
Thanks, agree
Bull. Chem. Soc. Jap. 44: 581. doi:10.1246/bcsj.44.581
If a tree falls in a forest…
What about Shilov/Fujiwara? is it not great?
OK, I’ll take a stab at it with high-throughput DNA sequencing & the human genome project. Hood will get a piece; I’m not certain who the others would be (ack…Venter?).
And the Nobel Prize’09 goes to… X-ray crystallographers! Yay!
@ LiqC
It seems that the time of Nobel Prizes for crystallography did not end yet, as it did for TotSyn
Great hockey players and heavy metal music are the great exports I think about when I think about Sweden.
swedish metal = <3
[...] 2009 Thomson Reuters Pick + Ψ*Ψ [...]
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