Noyori Ryōji

Noyori Ryōji, (born September 3, 1938, Kōbe, Japan), Japanese chemist who, with K. Barry Sharpless and William S. Knowles, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2001 for developing the first chiral catalysts.

Noyori earned a Ph.D. from Kyōto University in 1967 and the following year joined the faculty at Nagoya University. From 2000 to 2003 he served as director of the university’s Research Center for Materials Science. He later was president (2003–15) of RIKEN, one of Japan’s largest research institutions, and director (2006–08) of the government’s Education Rebuilding Council.

Many molecules are chiral—they exist in two structural forms (enantiomers) that are nonsuperimposable mirror images. Likewise, the receptors, enzymes, and other cellular components made from these molecules are chiral and tend to interact selectively with only one or two enantiomers of a given substance. For many drugs, however, conventional laboratory synthesis results in a mixture of enantiomers. One form usually has the desired effect while the other form may be inactive or cause undesirable side effects, such as occurred with the drug thalidomide. This problem led scientists to pursue chiral catalysts, which drive chemical reactions toward just one of two possible outcomes.

Building on the work of Knowles, Noyori began developing more general asymmetrical hydrogen catalysts in the 1980s. His catalysts had broader applications, could produce larger proportions of the desired enantiomer, and were suitable for large-scale industrial applications. They found wide use in the synthesis of antibiotics and other pharmaceutical products.