2021 Nobel Prize Lectures in Chemistry

Benjamin List and David MacMillan explain how small organic molecules became versatile catalysts for constructing other molecules. Their lectures follow the independent development of asymmetric organocatalysis and the chemical reasoning that allows a catalyst to favour one mirror-image product over another. The central problem is control: accelerating useful reactions while steering their stereochemical outcome. The programme connects the early discoveries with the expansion of catalytic methods and their use in efficient synthesis, including molecules relevant to medicines. It presents organocatalysis as a broadly usable approach to molecular construction and examines how catalyst design can make selective chemical transformations more accessible.