Chemistry Nobel Prize Predictions
In the Alty Group, we have three annual competitions: Paper of the Year in January, Group Challenge in the summer, and Nobel Prize predictions in October. The only way to truly win is to guess correctly! On Friday, October 2nd, we gathered during our group meeting to hear the predictions from four teams of two.
Sasha and Ajay propose: PROTACs!
Proteolysis-targeting chimeras have been game-changing for therapeutics. With the first FDA approval of a PROTAC drug this year, this topic is a top contender. Sasha and Ajay suspect that Craig Crews and Raymond Deshaies will be getting an early morning call from Europe this week. They would also like to see Kathleen Sakamoto share the prize.
Tanner and James propose: Electron transfer in proteins!
Fundamental work deducing how electrons move within proteins has been a field-defining discovery. Harry Gray deserves a Nobel Prize and would likely share it with Jay Winkler. Jill's note is that this could be expanded to include bioinorganic legends like Joanne Stubbe or Stephen Lippard.
Ethan and Gabe propose: Self-assembled monolayers!
This is AI's prediction as well. George Whitesides, one of the most prolific authors in chemical literature, absolutely deserves a prize for his pioneering work on self-assembled monolayers and soft lithography. While Ethan and Gabe wholeheartedly agree that Whitesides should receive the prize, they suspect he would share it alongside Jacob Sagiv and possibly others.
Jess and Jacob propose: Atom transfer radical polymerization!
Jess and Jacob are our resident polymer synthesis trainees, so naturally they selected a polymer topic. Controlled polymerizations have previously won the Nobel, such as olefin metathesis and Ziegler-Natta catalysis. Jill's note is that ATRP likely couldn't win exclusively over other controlled radical techniques (like RAFT or NMP), and there are too many major contributors to narrow the list down to three. Still, this would be thrilling for polymer chemists, so hopefully Krzysztof Matyjaszewski and Mitsuo Sawamoto get that phone call!
Disclaimer: Image made with AI.
