Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Early this morning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced. Three scientists -Martin Karplus of the University of Strasbourg and Harvard University, Michael Levitt of Stanford University, and Arieh Warshel of the University of Southern California - will share the prize this year for their work in developing computational chemistry. Together, the three of them developed the tools necessary for modeling reactions that take place on a atomic level using computers back in the 70's. You can read the NPR summary here.

Some argue that the choices for this selection were not spot on 100%. Many agree that Karplus is deserving of the award, but the others are debatable. What should be clear is that this award is really going to the field of computational chemistry, but the committee needed some faces to go along with it.

So what should this mean for you, the handful of undergrads that read this blog and therefore the intended audience? It means that we should honor those who went before. It means that every time you read about some basic and not-so-basic reaction in a textbook, someone has probably used a computer to simulate that reaction. It means that in our very near future in industry, we will be using these advancements to design drugs and materials before getting to the lab. It means that this field is so important today, that the committee decided to honor it forty years after the fact. And it means that you are not likely to get out of college without knowing something about it.

Link to the official announcement

What do you think? Was this the right call? Are the three scientist deserving of the prize? Who else would you include? Leave a comment below.