CHEMISTRY
NAMEWilliam S. Knowles
BORN
1917 (U.S. citizen)
EDUCATION
Ph.D., 1942, Columbia University
CAREER
Previously at Monsanto Company, St. Louis, Missouri. Retired since 1986.
NOTABLE CONTRIBUTION
He "discovered that it is possible to use transition metals to make chiral catalysts for an important type of reaction called hydrogenation," said a Nobel Prize press release. This research led to the rapid production of L-Dopa, a drug used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease.