It’s that time again. Time for the buzz to start about who gets a trip to Stockholm. My favorites, in no particular order, are- Bergman, Grey, Whitesides, Kagan, and Mislow. It is a pity that Al Cotton passed on before taking his ride to Sweden.
Naturally, my guess will be wildly off-base owing to my complete ignorance of some seminal work on nano, bio, metalloenzymatic, mRNA, photolabile, surface active, quantum tunneling, neutron activated, antiviral, ionic liquid, quasi-xtal work that has been thrumming along in the basement of Princeton university since Ike was president and known only to 8 people.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
My perennial pick is Roger Tsien, discoverer of the green fluorescent protein, which is used all over the place in studies of gene expression and protein biochemistry.
I think this time the bioinorganic crew get their due: Harry Gray, Steve Lippard, and ?? for investigations related to metal ions role in biological processes.
e- transport, Pt drugs, ??
I still think that Pd coupling is coming soon, except for the political mess surrounding all the players in the field. . .
I’m sympathetic to your point on bioinorganic.
“nano, bio, metalloenzymatic, mRNA, photolabile, surface active, quantum tunneling, neutron activated, antiviral, ionic liquid, quasi-”
Skills in those areas and a cup of coffee will get you either a Nobel or a
place on the unemployment line. Biologists or physicists don’t deserve a chemistry Nobel.
Oh!!
Ok folks game seem to be about over.
1. Expect Bush to declare martial law and preempt the next election.
(do you really think he’d allow a democrat in the Whitehouse to uncover all his nasty secrets?)
2. Expect most forms of credit and bank accounts to be rendered worthless.
3. Expect to report to duty and be fed gruel the rest of your life.
So get yourself some guns, gold, whiskey and a few sacks of potatoes.
Paulson is the new emperor of the world!
Tsien probably. I would like Prof. Whitesides to get it, but I sort of doubt it would actually happen, because his research interes have been so diverse and diffuse. Pd-catalyzed couplings are a Nobel prize morass – they’re useful, but there’s going to be a lot of unhappy people if a Nobel is actually given in the field.
I don’t know all of the applied bio awards end up in chemistry though.
I’m not sure about the bioinorganic folks. What contributions have Lippard, Gray, et al. made that really revolutionized chemistry or biology? On the level of alkene metathesis, chiral catalytic reactions, discovery of telomeres, etc.?
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