Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to 2 scientists for developing tool to build molecules

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to German scientist Benjamin List of the Max Planck Institute and Scotland-born scientist David W.C. MacMillan of Princeton University.

They were cited for their work in developing a new way for building molecules known as "asymmetric organocatalysis."

The winners were announced Wednesday by Goran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel panel said List and MacMillan in 2000 independently developed a new way of catalysis (the acceleration of a chemical reaction by a catalyst).

"It's already benefiting humankind greatly," Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede, a member of the Nobel panel, said.

Speaking after the announcement, List said the award was a "huge surprise."

"I absolutely didn't expect this," he said, noting that he was on vacation in Amsterdam with his family when the call from Sweden came in.