Google – AFP, 9 October 2013
 |
Photos of
scientists (L-R) Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel are
shown at
a press conference to announce the winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry
on October 9, 2013 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in
Stockholm (AFP,
Jonathan Nackstrand)
|
Stockholm —
Three scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for developing
computer models to simulate chemical processes, providing a revolutionary tool
for drug designers and engineers.
Martin
Karplus, a US-Austrian citizen, Michael Levitt, a US-British citizen, and Arieh
Warshel of the US and Israel were honoured "for the development of
multiscale models for complex chemical systems," the Nobel jury said.
The three
were being recognised for "taking the experiment to cyberspace," it
added.
Chemists
all over the world simulate complex experiments on their computers thanks to
work by the trio that dates back to the 1970s, the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences said in a statement.
"I was
doing work before my post doc when I was 20 years old to write a computer
programme.
I guess I wrote a pretty good programme," Levitt, now 66, told
AFP by telephone from his California home.
 |
A combo of
undated handout pictures shows scientists (L-R) Martin Karplus, Michael
Levitt
and Arieh Warshel, winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (TT NEWS
AGENCY/AFP, Claudio Bresciani)
|
He said
that it was "essentially" this programme that lay at the core of
Wednesday's Nobel prize, and people benefitted from it to this day.
"I was
speaking to a doctoral student yesterday and he was able to do a calculation
that used to take two hours and now takes a 100th of a second," Levitt
said. "It makes a huge difference!"
The Nobel
jury said the tool is "universal", helping pharmaceutical engineers
to design new drugs or engineers to make cleaner energy sources or smarter
manufactured products.
The three
combined classical physics with quantum physics -- two previously rival worlds
-- in computer models designed to predict chemical reactions.
Such
reactions can take place, for instance, between industrial chemicals or in
biological functions, when an enzyme cuts a protein, a virus penetrates a cell
or or a cell divides.
The
processes can happen in a fraction of a millisecond, defeating conventional
algorithms that try to map them step by step.
By
including quantum physics in the computational mix, the number of permutations
for calculation rises hugely, as they incorporate the possibility that an atom
is in one of several of the famously fickle quantum states at any time in the
processes.
This also
requires enormous computer power to crunch the data.
"The
computer models that have been developed by the Nobel laureates in chemistry
2013 are powerful tools," the academy observed.
"Exactly
how far they can advance our knowledge is for the future to decide."
 |
The Nobel
Assembly shows photos of scientists (L-R) Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt
and
Arieh Warshel, announced as the laureates of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
on October 9, 2013 at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm (AFP,
Jonathan Nackstrand)
|
Computer
models had also radically changed the ways chemists do their work, the academy
observed.
"Today
the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube,"
it said.
Karplus,
83, works at the University of Strasbourg in eastern France and Harvard
University; Levitt at Stanford University; and Warshel, 72, at the University
of Southern California.
The Academy
of Sciences said Levitt has described his dream of simulating a living organism
on a molecular level as a "tantalising thought."
The trio
will share the prize sum of eight million Swedish kronor ($1.25 million,
925,000 euros), reduced because of the economic crisis last year from the 10
million kronor awarded since 2001.
In line
with tradition, the laureates will receive their prize at a formal ceremony in
Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death
in 1896.
Last year,
the honour went to Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka of the United States for
identifying a class of cell receptor, yielding vital insights into how the body
functions on the molecular scale.
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