Patrick Lannin & Adam Cox STOCKHOLM: A US and two Japanese scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for inventing new ways to bind carbon atoms with uses that range from fighting cancer to producing thin computer screens. Richard Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki shared the prize for the development of “palladium-catalysed cross-coupling”, the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement. “Palladium-catalysed cross-coupling is used in research worldwide, as well as in the commercial production of, for example, pharmaceuticals and molecules used in the electronics industry,” the committee said. Such chemicals included one found in small quantities in a sea sponge, which scientists aim to use to fight cancer cells. Thanks to the scientists' chemical tool, researchers can now artificially produce this substance, called discodermolide. The process can also be used to create treatments for colon cancer, herpes and HIV as well as to make an anti-biotic first found in soil from the Borneo jungle more effective against drug-resistant bacteria. The committee noted that carbon chemistry was the basis of life, being behind “colour in flowers, snake poison and bacteria killing substances such as penicillin”. The prize of 10 million crowns ($1.5 million) was the third of this year's Nobel prizes, following awards for medicine on Monday and for physics on Tuesday.
