Karplus, Levitt, Warshel win Nobel chemistry prize

Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel have won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry for laying the foundation for computer models used to understand and predict chemical processes.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Wednesday said their research in the 1970s has helped scientists develop programs that unveil chemical processes such as the purification of exhaust fumes and the photosynthesis in green leaves.

"Today the computer is just as important a tool for chemists as the test tube," the academy said in a statement. "Computer models mirroring real life have become crucial for most advances made in chemistry today.

"Chemical reactions occur at lightning speed; electrons jump between atomic nuclei, hidden from the prying eyes of scientists," the academy added.

In drug design, for example, researchers can now use computers to calculate how an experimental medicine will react with a particular target protein in the body by working out the interplay of atoms. Today, all pharmaceutical companies have sections dedicated to predicting by computer modeling how a drug molecule will interact with the body.

But the approach also has applications in industrial processes, such as the design of solar cells or catalysts used in cars. For the former, programs can be used to mimic the process of photosynthesis by which green leaves absorb sunlight and produce oxygen.

Ultimately, the ability to computerize such complex chemical processes might make it possible to simulate a complete living organism at the molecular level, something Levitt has described as one of his dreams.

"It's like seeing a watch and wondering how actually it works," Warshel, talking about the use of computer programs, told reporters in Stockholm according to Reuters.

"You can use it to design drugs, or in my case, to satisfy your curiosity."

Karplus, a U.S. and Austrian citizen, is affiliated with the University of Strasbourg, France, and with Harvard University. Levitt is a British and Israeli citizen and a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Warshel is a U.S. and Israeli citizen affiliated with the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Earlier this week, three Americans won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about how key substances are moved around within cells. The physics award went to British and Belgian scientists whose theories help explain how matter formed after the Big Bang.

Al Jazeera with wire services