US, Japan favored for Nobel chemistry prize
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — U.S. and Japanese researchers are among the favorites to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry, but don't expect any recent discoveries to get the nod.
The prize committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences typically awards decades-old research that has withstood the test of time.
Possible fields that could be recognized include biochemistry or nanotechnology.
Americans Stuart Schreiber and Gerald Crabtree are among potential candidates for pioneering work in chemical biology, shedding light on how tiny molecules can be used on cell circuits and signaling pathways.
If the prize honors nanotechnology, possible winners could include British chemist James Fraser Stoddart or Japan's Sumio Iijima, who discovered carbon nanotubes in 1991.
Nanotechnology involves research at an atomic level that seeks to create smaller and more powerful devices and systems in a wide range of areas, from food production to health care products and military equipment.
U.S. and Japanese scientists have been well represented among Nobel chemistry winners in recent years.
There were Japanese winners in 2000, 2001 and 2002, and U.S. researchers were honored every year from 1992 to 2006.
Last year's award went to Gerhard Ertl of Germany for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding such questions as why the ozone layer is thinning.
This year's Nobel announcements started Monday with the medicine prize going to three European researchers for separate discoveries of viruses that cause AIDS and cervical cancer, breakthroughs that helped doctors fight the deadly diseases.
Two Japanese citizens and an American won the 2008 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for discoveries that help explain the behavior of the smallest particles of matter.
The prize in literature and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced later this week, and the economics award will be presented on Monday.
The $1.4 million prizes are handed out every year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
- Nobel Prizes: http://www.nobelprize.org
