(Stockholm) – Three American scientists won the Nobel Prize for chemistry on Wednesday for pioneering work on computer programs that simulate complex chemical processes and have accelerated progress in areas from drugs to solar energy. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, awarding the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.25 million) to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, said their work had effectively taken chemistry into cyberspace. Gone were the days of modelling reactions using plastic balls and sticks.
“Today the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube,” the academy said in a statement. In drug design, for example, researchers can now use computers to calculate how an experimental medicine will react with a particular target protein in the body by working out the interplay of atoms. But the approach also has applications in industrial processes, such as the design of solar cells or catalysts used in cars.