Nobody Cares Who I Think Should Get A Nobel

EDIT: Gerhard Ertl won the Prize for Chemsitry this year. Well-deserved on his part, and I'm glad surface chemistry is being recognized this year, but the fact that Somorjai and Whitesides didn't win is, in my professional opinion, 'tarded. Oh well. Like Kyle said, the Nobel is a silly thing anyway.

First off, suck it Bush. Suck it long and suck it hard. I say that a lot, but why this time? Because pioneering work in embryonic stem cell research and its impact on gene therapy was awarded with a Nobel Prize in Medicine today. Bush's veto of the embryonic stem-cell research bill last year and today's Nobel announcement further illustrates the divide between scientific progress and the Bush Administration's policies. While the Nobel was for research on mice, and the ban on human stem cells, the announcement still shows the importance of stem cells in gene research.

Anyway. They're announcing the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday, which means it's time for speculation- one can debate the usefulness of such speculation (ok whatever it's a worthless waste of time), but it sure is fun. I'm not banking on a prize in materials chemistry or organic chemistry, based on the chemistry selection committee, a hodgepodge of p-chemists and biologists with umlauts in their names. However, most of the work I do, and the work of many people who do work on novel materials, is centered around the truly pioneering work of three chemists who, in my opinion (and, after five minutes of discusion with Ψ*Ψ, her opinion as well) are highly deserving of the Nobel Prize. This is meant on no way to predict who the winner will be on Wednesday. I am neither Swedish nor broadly knowledgeable in all areas of chemistry (especially the molecular biology aspects), but go here if you wanna place your bets.

George Whitesides and Ralph Nuzzo. I call Whitesides the world's smartest chromedome. He might object to that, but I have yet to find evidence to the contrary. If they do get the Nobel, it will be for their research on self-assembled monolayers. (That paper, according to Web of Science, has been cited over 2,100 times.) However, Whitesides has been a pioneer in nearly everything he's had his hand in, from his early work on C-H activation in metals to soft lithography to, more recently, multi-ligand interactions in enzymes (well, I thought it was neat). But his work on self-assembled monolayers is Nobel-worthy. It's had a large impact on the miniaturization of electronic devices as well as simply being a simple method for creating ordered monolayers on conductive substrates. Another pioneer in surface chemistry has been Gabor Somorjai, whose work on studying surface metal-metal interactions and metal-organic interactions on the atomic level has also had a huge impact on surface chemistry.

Richard Heck. Heck's work needs no introduction to organic chemists. Most noted for the reaction that bears his name, Heck's work on palladium catalysis preceded pretty much everyone else's at the time. The Suzuki reaction? Heck's work set the stage for that. The Sonogashira reaction? Heck did it first (without the copper). Seeing as both academia and industry have benefitted from palladium-catalyzed organic reactions, Heck certainly deserves a Nobel for this early work that led to some of the most important reactions of the late 20th century. (Metathesis was honored two years ago, which, while important, hasn't had half the impact palladium has.) Plus, Heck's getting up there in age, so they need to get it to him quickly.

So that's what I think. In my professional (?) opinion, neither of them will win the Nobel, and it'll be given to people whose research I don't really care about (I has an idea lets give it to another biologists lol).