FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE NEWS MEDIA CONTACT: Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today congratulated Dr. Richard R. Schrock
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dr. Robert H. Grubbs of the
California Institute of Technology for co-winning the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “On behalf of the Department of Energy, I congratulate Americans Robert
H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin of France for winning the
2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discoveries that enable industry to
produce plastics and drugs more efficiently and with less hazardous waste,” Secretary
Bodman, a trained chemical engineer, said. “For decades, the Department of Energy has been the leading federal
supporter of catalytic chemistry, so we are especially pleased to highlight
Dr. Schrock’s affiliation with the DOE Office of Science, dating back
to 1979 and continuing to this day,” Secretary Bodman said. “In
addition, Dr. Grubbs’ initial work in homogeneous catalysis was supported
from 1979 through 1988 by the DOE Office of Science.” The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
jointly to Chauvin, Grubbs and Schrock “for the development of the metathesis
method in organic synthesis,” a way to rearrange groups of atoms within
molecules that the Academy’s news release likened “to a dance in
which the couples change partners.” The Department of Energy has sponsored 42 Nobel Laureates since DOE’s
inception in 1977 – and a total of 82 Nobel Laureates associated with
DOE and its predecessor agencies since 1934. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences news release announcing the 2005 Nobel
Prize in Chemistry is at: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/laureates/2005/press.html. Information about Nobel laureates supported by the Department of Energy is
available at: http://www.science.doe.gov/sub/accomplishments/heroes/heroes.htm. Aristides Patrinos, PhD., has been a researcher at the department’s
Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory and worked
at the Environmental Protection Agency prior to joining DOE in 1986. He
has headed the Office of Biological and Environmental Research since 1993. Patrinos
oversees research activities including the Genomes to Life program, structural
biology, nuclear medicine and health effects, global environmental change and
basic research underpinning DOE's environmental restoration effort. He
is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Geophysical
Union, the American Meteorological Society and the Greek Technical Society. Secretary Abraham most recently gave the Gold Award in 2002 to Dr. Edward
Teller, director emeritus of the department’s Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory. Back to Previous Page
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