On Oct. 5, 2021, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 was awarded to Benjamin List and David MacMillan “for their development of a precise new tool for molecular construction: organocatalysis.”

Catalysts are fundamental tools for chemists, but researchers long believed that there were, in principle, just two types of catalysts available: metals and enzymes. Benjamin List and David MacMillan were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2021 because in 2000 they, independent of each other, developed a third type of catalysis. It is called asymmetric organocatalysis and builds upon small organic molecules.