Chemistry
Chemistry converted natural philosophy into industry. These figures organised the elements, synthesised the compounds that feed and medicate billions, and built the analytical methods that forensic labs and drug regulators depend on.
26 indexed lives · 12 Nobel laureates · 17 countries
Where to start
Marie Skłodowska-Curie
1867 – 1934The only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
Ernest Rutherford
1871 – 1937Found the atomic nucleus and split the atom.
Katalin Karikó
b. 1955Demoted, defunded, and right: her mRNA work produced the COVID vaccines.
Nobel recognition in Chemistry
- Marie Skłodowska-Curie
Nobel Prize in Physics 1903; Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1911
- Fritz Haber
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1918
- Ernest Rutherford
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1908
- Dorothy Hodgkin
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1964
- César Milstein
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 1984
- Alan MacDiarmid
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2000
- Tu Youyou
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2015
- Ada Yonath
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2009
- Mario Molina
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1995
- Ahmed Zewail
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1999
- Katalin Karikó
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2023
- Jennifer Doudna
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2020