Nordic Life Science 1
“As chemists, we can create things that are new t
o the universe and potentially improve our life. Thanks to the generous support of the Max Planck Society, I have the freedom to research whatever I am interested in,” says Prof. Dr. Benjamin List, Director at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany. “Another great part of being a scientist is the international atmosphere – both at our institute and in the worldwide community,” he adds. Together with David MacMillan, a professor at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S., List received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis. This has had a great impact on pharmaceutical research, and it has also made chemistry greener. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Nobel Prizes 2021 were awarded in a hybrid format in pandemic-curtailed local ceremonies. The ceremony honoring List took place on December 7th in Berlin’s Harnack House, the conference venue of the Max Planck Society. Just two months earlier, on October 6th, Benjamin List had received the famous telephone call from Sweden. “When I noticed my phone vibrating and saw that an unknown number from Sweden was calling, I could not believe it. It was overwhelming. I had been sitting in a café in Amsterdam with my wife in that moment and went outside to answer the call. When I received the news I made a funny gesture to my wife – as if I was fainting. She immediately got it,” he says. Although receiving a Nobel Prize came as a big surprise for List, he knew early on in life that he wanted to become a scientist. “I wanted to become a chemist since I was eleven years old. As a child I had a quite philosophical interest in science. I believed that chemists are the ones who can explain everything, as they look into the smallest parts of matter. Obviously I was wrong, chemists cannot explain everything, but it is still a beautiful, fascinating science to me,” he states. Perhaps the interest in chemistry also runs in the blood. List’s great-great-grandfather was the chemist Jacob Volhard, and Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, a Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine 1995, is his aunt. NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG 57