Two Japanese and one American share chemistry Nobel

An American and two Japanese scientists won the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for developing a chemical method allowing scientists to make potential cancer drugs and other medicines, as well as slimmed-down computer screens, reports the Associated Press.

Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki were honored for their development of one of the most sophisticated tools available to chemists today, called palladium-catalyzed cross couplings.

The method is used by researchers worldwide and in commercial production of pharmaceuticals and molecules used to make electronics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Heck, 79, is a professor emeritus at the University of Delaware. Negishi, 75, is a chemistry professor at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and 80-year-old Suzuki is a professor at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

Negishi told reporters in Stockholm by telephone that he was asleep when the call came.

"I went to bed last night well past midnight so I was sleeping but I am extremely happy to receive the telephone call," he said.
Officials at Hokkaido University were delighted by the news, said university spokesman Hidetoshi Nakatsuka.

"Professor Suzuki has been mentioned as a candidate in the past few years and we've been waiting for this to happen for all these years," Nakatsuka said. "We were standing by and we are extremely delighted."

The method developed by the Nobel winners has been used to artificially produce cancer-killing substances first found in marine sponges, the academy said in its citation. While clinical testing has started, it's not yet clear whether they will turn out to be useful drugs.

It's also being used to create new antibiotics that work on resistant bacteria and a number of commercially available drugs, including the anti-inflammatory Naproxen, prize committee member Claes Gustafsson said.