US, Japanese researchers win Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Portraits on overhead screen (from left) show American Richard Heck and Japanese researchers Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki who won the 2010 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday. AP

The trio won for their work in the development of "palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis", a chemical tool used for creating advanced chemicals, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Among its uses are carbon-based molecules that are as complex as those created by nature.Heck, who was born in 1931, is professor emeritus at the University of Delaware in the US.

Negishi, born 1935, is chemistry professor at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana in the US, while Suzuki, born 1930, is professor emeritus at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan.

The chemistry prize is the third Nobel prize to be announced this year.Russian-born scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov Tuesday shared the physics prize.
On Monday, the medicine prize was awarded to British researcher Robert Edwards a pioneer of in-vitro fertilisation.