Benjamin List, 58, won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry alongside his colleague David MacMillan for discovering a new pathway in chemistry: asymmetric organocatalysis.

Anyone familiar with the severe birth defects in babies caused by thalidomide will understand the significance of the breakthrough. That medical tragedy of the 1950s and 1960s was due to two chiral molecules, meaning that one was the mirror image of the other. One was harmless, but its counterpart caused malformations in newborns.

List’s discovery opened up the possibility of producing useful molecules without generating their mirror-image counterparts. This has enormous applications in drug development and in the emerging field of green chemistry, which seeks to reduce the environmental impact of producing fuels and pharmaceuticals.

List comes from a family of artists and scientists. His aunt, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. List currently directs the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Germany, a center founded more than a century ago that now specializes in catalysis to address the problems caused by burning fossil fuels, among other things.

In this interview, conducted ahead of a lecture at Madrid’s Ramón Areces Foundation, the chemist discusses the many applications of this technology, such as producing one of the world’s most pleasant and sought-after fragrances.

Question. What is the biggest problem facing humanity today that chemistry can help solve?

Answer. Climate change is the mother of all problems. It is so vast that it seems too big for chemistry alone. From our field, we can solve problems on the scale of hundreds of millions of tons. But the amount of carbon dioxide involved in climate change is 1,000 times greater. We have now found a possible path: artificial photosynthesis. We break carbon dioxide down into its basic elements, carbon and oxygen. And theirein lies the beauty of chemistry, because this method allows us to tackle the problem at its full scale, using the carbon for other processes or returning it to the soil from which it came.

Q. How far are you from achieving this?

A. Relatively far. There’s a joke that nuclear fusion energy is always 40 years away. In artificial photosynthesis, we are much closer; it’s a far less crazy idea.

Q. Do you think chemistry and chemical compounds have a bad reputation in our society?

A. I’ve been in this field since 1999, and chemists have always been seen as a dark force, bad, somewhat toxic. That’s the perception. I don’t want to challenge it too aggressively, because I feel like Don Quixote fighting windmills when I defend the virtues of chemistry. Maybe what we can hope for is neutral ignorance from the majority — that they don’t oppose it — and on that we have made progress.

Q. Why does chemistry have a bad reputation?

A. I will never stop repeating that chemistry has extended our life expectancy; we have healthier lives and better medicines against viruses and infections. The entire revolution in molecular biology would not have been possible without synthetic chemistry.

Q. Do you have an example?

A. Yes, we are developing a company that makes natural fragrances and perfumes, reproducing compounds identical to those extracted from crude oil for these purposes. We use synthetic chemistry to copy that molecule. It is far more sustainable than extracting oil or cutting down trees.

Q. What kinds of fragrances can you create?

A. One comes from whales. These mammals suffer injuries to their colons from the squid beaks they ingest. As a result, they produce a waxy substance to protect themselves, which they later expel in lumps weighing up to 10 kilos that can float at sea for years until a fisherman finds one, splits it in half, and from its interior emerges one of the most pleasant perfumes imaginable. It is a very scarce material. It contains about 16 isomeric compounds with the same chemical formula, but only one of them smells so good. Now, thanks to organocatalysis, we have the possibility of producing that compound without having to use the original product, ambergris.

Q. Are you worried that artificial intelligence will put an end to the human factor in major discoveries?

A. I hope there will always be a need for human intelligence. Consider the protein-folding problem, one of biology’s greatest challenges. It was solved by Demis Hassabis, a master of chess and computing. I am a strong supporter of AI and machine learning in science. That said, these systems rest on an enormous repository of data generated by humans over decades. To create something truly new in my field, I have not yet seen AI solve an important problem. Although it will probably get there.

Q. You have defended the importance of being bored.

A. I work on the ninth floor of a building in Mülheim. It’s a boring town; it feels like every day is Sunday. But that peace, that stillness, is very stimulating when you begin to sketch molecules on paper and imagine chemical reactions. The best ideas can come out of that boredom.

Q. Modern science is based on competition, sometimes ruthless competition, to be the first to discover something and publish it. Does that make sense?

A. I’m very much in favor of it not being that way. That, for example, all my experiments were public and any other scientist could comment. Maybe they would warn me of errors before I made them. It would be a bit like socialism and communism, which are beautiful ideas: we all work together, there is no poverty and no rich people. It’s a great idea, but so far it hasn’t worked. I think being competitive is part of our nature. Sometimes the drive to be first borders on stupidity, but it’s very human to always look at the first person and not the second.

Q. In 2004, your son was missing for hours after the worst tsunami in recent history, and that made you reconsider what is important in life. What happened?

A. It was a revealing experience. People have very sophisticated desires: I want to be the first to publish, win the Nobel Prize, get rich, meet my soulmate. We all have those imaginings, and although we chase them, we know those things will not make us happy. When you come out of an experience like that — when you think you have lost your child — you understand what is important. The problem is that, immersed in the day-to-day battles, we forget it again.

Q. Your colleague David MacMillan bet you $1,000 that the Nobel call was a prank. Did he end up paying?

A. Yes! He handed it to me officially in Stockholm, and I later donated it to a charity he created. There’s another anecdote from that day. I always used to say I was in a coffee shop in Amsterdam having breakfast with my wife when I got the Nobel call. Now I always clarify that it was a cafeteria. The thing is, when I answered the call from Goran Hansson of the Royal Swedish Academy, he introduced himself, and I cut him off to say it was a great honor, etc., until he interrupted me: “One moment, I haven’t told you yet why I’m calling.” Can you imagine if he’d called only to ask for MacMillan’s number? What a nightmare! [laughs].

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