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