Nobel Prize in Chemistry winners quiz (50 questions)
Chemists have given us medicines, batteries, plastics and a way to read life's building blocks. Match the winner to the discovery and learn the story.
About this quiz: the people, prizes and dates were checked against official and reference sources, and the stories are retold in makekite's own words with the help of AI. If you spot a mistake, please tell us on the contact page.
50 multiple-choice questions, with the answer explained after each one.
Answer each question, see why, and beat your best score.
All 50 questions and answers
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- Jacobus van 't Hoff of the Netherlands won the very first Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1901. What was it for?
- Inventing dynamite
- Discovering the element radium
- Making synthetic dyes
- The laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions
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The laws of chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions. Van 't Hoff was born in Rotterdam. His laws describe how fast chemical reactions go and how dissolved substances behave.
- Sir William Ramsay won in 1904 for discovering which group of elements in the air?
- The inert gaseous elements (noble gases)
- The halogens
- The rare earths
- The alkali metals
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The inert gaseous elements (noble gases). He also worked out where these gases fit in the periodic system.
- Ernest Rutherford, famous as a physicist, won the 1908 Nobel Prize in which subject?
- Physics
- Chemistry
- Medicine
- Peace
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Chemistry. The prize honoured his investigations into the disintegration of the elements and the chemistry of radioactive substances.
- Marie Curie won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering which two elements?
- Radium and polonium
- Uranium and thorium
- Helium and neon
- Argon and krypton
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Radium and polonium. She also isolated radium. She is the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, having won the physics prize in 1903.
- Irène Joliot-Curie and her husband Frédéric won in 1935 for synthesising new radioactive elements. How was Irène related to Marie Curie?
- She was Marie Curie's daughter
- She was Marie Curie's cousin
- She was Marie Curie's sister
- She was Marie Curie's student only
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She was Marie Curie's daughter. Their greatest discovery was artificial radioactivity in 1934, made by bombarding boron, aluminium and magnesium with alpha particles.
- Norman Haworth won in 1937 for investigations on carbohydrates and which vitamin?
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin K
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Vitamin C. His work helped to work out the structure of this essential nutrient.
- George de Hevesy won in 1943 for using isotopes as what in the study of chemical processes?
- Fuels
- Tracers
- Magnets
- Dyes
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Tracers. A radioactive isotope can be followed through a process as if it were a tiny label, revealing where atoms go.
- Artturi Virtanen of Finland won in 1945 for his research in agricultural and nutrition chemistry. What was his best-known invention?
- A machine for milking
- A way to make margarine
- A fodder preservation method
- A fertiliser from seaweed
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A fodder preservation method. The citation names his fodder preservation method, which helped farmers keep feed good through the winter.
- James Sumner won in 1946 for showing that what can be crystallised?
- Sugar from beets
- Enzymes
- Vitamins
- Salt from the sea
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Enzymes. His discovery showed that enzymes are chemical substances that can be purified, a key step in understanding how living things work.
- Glenn Seaborg and Edwin McMillan won in 1951 for discoveries about which kind of elements?
- Rare earth metals
- Halogens
- Noble gases
- Transuranium elements
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Transuranium elements. These are elements heavier than uranium, which do not occur naturally in significant amounts.
- Linus Pauling won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research into the nature of what?
- Crystal growth
- The chemical bond
- Human blood
- The atomic nucleus
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The chemical bond. He later also won the Peace Prize, making him the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes.
- Willard Libby won in 1960 for a method of finding the age of ancient objects using which element?
- Uranium-238
- Potassium-40
- Carbon-14
- Hydrogen-3
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Carbon-14. Radiocarbon dating is used in archaeology, geology, geophysics and other branches of science.
- Melvin Calvin won in 1961 for his research on how plants take in carbon dioxide during what process?
- Germination
- Digestion
- Respiration
- Photosynthesis
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Photosynthesis. One of the most basic processes of life is photosynthesis, in which green plants use sunlight to make carbohydrates from water and carbon dioxide.
- Frederick Sanger won the Chemistry prize twice. His first prize, in 1958, was for working out the structure of which protein?
- Insulin
- Keratin
- Collagen
- Haemoglobin
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Insulin. He won again in 1980, shared with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert, for work on DNA. Only Sanger and Barry Sharpless have won the Chemistry prize twice.
- Max Perutz and John Kendrew won in 1962 for studying the structures of which kind of molecules, such as haemoglobin and myoglobin?
- Metal alloys
- Sugars
- Plastics
- Globular proteins
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Globular proteins. Haemoglobin allows blood to carry oxygen to muscles, and myoglobin stores oxygen inside muscle cells.
- Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin won in 1964 for using X-rays to determine the structures of important biochemical substances. Which vitamin was among them?
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin B12
- Vitamin A
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Vitamin B12. She worked out the structure of penicillin in 1946 and of vitamin B12 in 1956, and later also studied insulin.
- Bruce Merrifield won in 1984 for a way of building chemical chains on a solid matrix. What did this help make easier?
- Refining petrol
- Making peptides and proteins
- Making steel
- Brewing beer
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Making peptides and proteins. His methodology for chemical synthesis on a solid matrix is used to make peptides and proteins for research and medicine.
- Mario Molina, born in Mexico City, shared the 1995 prize for work on the formation and decomposition of what in the atmosphere?
- Methane
- Nitrogen
- Water vapour
- Ozone
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Ozone. He shared it with Paul Crutzen and F. Sherwood Rowland. Their work showed how certain chemicals can damage the ozone layer.
- Kroto, Curl and Smalley won in 1996 for discovering a new form of carbon called what?
- Fullerenes
- Graphite
- Nanotubes only
- Charcoal
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Fullerenes. The structures are named after the architect Buckminster Fuller, who worked with similar geometric shapes.
- Kary Mullis won in 1993 for inventing which method that copies DNA millions of times?
- Cloning
- Gel electrophoresis
- Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
- X-ray crystallography
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Polymerase chain reaction (PCR). PCR lets scientists make enough copies of a tiny piece of DNA to analyse it.
- Ahmed Zewail, born in Egypt, won in 1999 for studying chemical reactions using which very short pulses?
- Sound pulses
- Femtosecond pulses of laser light
- Radio pulses
- X-ray pulses of one hour
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Femtosecond pulses of laser light. A femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second, short enough to see the transition states of a reaction.
- Heeger, MacDiarmid and Shirakawa won in 2000 for the discovery of what kind of plastic?
- Fireproof plastic
- Conductive polymers
- Glow-in-the-dark plastic
- Biodegradable plastic
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Conductive polymers. Plastics are normally used as insulators, so polymers that conduct electricity were a surprise.
- Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, born in Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, shared the 2009 prize for the structure and function of the ribosome. What does a ribosome do?
- Stores genetic information
- Builds proteins in cells
- Digests food
- Makes oxygen
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Builds proteins in cells. He shared it with Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath. Ribosomes read the genetic code and assemble proteins.
- Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien won in 2008 for the green fluorescent protein, GFP. Which animal was it first isolated from?
- A firefly
- A jellyfish
- A sea sponge
- A deep-sea shark
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A jellyfish. Shimomura isolated GFP from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria and found that it glowed green in ultraviolet light.
- Dan Shechtman won in 2011 for discovering what, which break the old rules about crystal patterns?
- Quasicrystals
- Superconductors
- Liquid crystals
- Graphene
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Quasicrystals. Shechtman, born in Tel Aviv, worked at the Technion in Haifa when he received the prize.
- Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka won in 2012 for studying a family of proteins on cell surfaces. What are they called?
- Ribosomes
- Antibodies
- Chromosomes
- G-protein-coupled receptors
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G-protein-coupled receptors. These receptors help cells sense things like hormones and light.
- Karplus, Levitt and Warshel won in 2013 for developing multiscale models for what?
- Stock markets
- Complex chemical systems
- Ocean currents
- Weather
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Complex chemical systems. Their approach combines classical and quantum physics so that computers can simulate chemical reactions.
- Betzig, Hell and Moerner won in 2014 for super-resolved fluorescence microscopy. What does it let scientists see?
- Details smaller than ordinary light microscopes allow
- Sounds inside the ear
- Planets around other stars
- The surface of the Sun
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Details smaller than ordinary light microscopes allow. It pushes optical microscopes beyond what was long thought to be their limit.
- Aziz Sancar, born in Savur, Turkey, shared the 2015 prize for mechanistic studies of what?
- Photosynthesis
- Muscle growth
- DNA repair
- Blood clotting
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DNA repair. Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Sancar each studied a different way cells fix damage to their DNA.
- Sauvage, Stoddart and Feringa won in 2016 for the design and synthesis of what?
- Weather balloons
- Molecular machines
- Radio waves
- Plastic bottles
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Molecular machines. These are molecules built to move in controlled ways, a first step towards tiny machines.
- Dubochet, Frank and Henderson won in 2017 for developing which technique to see the shapes of biomolecules?
- Cryo-electron microscopy
- Infrared photography
- Ultrasound
- Radio astronomy
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Cryo-electron microscopy. Freezing samples keeps biomolecules in a natural state while they are imaged in high detail.
- Frances Arnold of Caltech won in 2018 for the directed evolution of what?
- Bacteria that eat plastic
- Antibiotics
- Enzymes
- Crops
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Enzymes. In directed evolution, scientists copy the way evolution works to create improved enzymes in the laboratory.
- Goodenough, Whittingham and Yoshino won in 2019 for developing which type of battery?
- Lead-acid batteries
- Lithium-ion batteries
- Alkaline batteries
- Zinc-carbon batteries
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Lithium-ion batteries. Whittingham developed an innovative cathode in a lithium battery in the 1970s. Today these batteries power phones and electric cars.
- Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna won in 2020 for a method of what?
- Sequencing DNA faster
- Making vaccines
- Genome editing
- Cloning animals
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Genome editing. They simplified a bacterial defence system into the CRISPR/Cas9 'genetic scissors', which can cut DNA at chosen places.
- Benjamin List and David MacMillan won in 2021 for the development of asymmetric what?
- Fermentation
- Fusion
- Polymerisation
- Organocatalysis
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Organocatalysis. They found a new way to build molecules using small organic catalysts instead of metals or enzymes.
- Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless won in 2022 for 'click chemistry'. What is the idea behind it?
- Molecules snap together quickly and reliably
- Reactions powered by sound
- Chemistry done in total darkness
- Using only plastic
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Molecules snap together quickly and reliably. Sharpless also won in 2001, so he joined Sanger as the only people to win the Chemistry prize twice.
- Bawendi, Brus and Yekimov won in 2023 for the discovery and synthesis of what, tiny crystals whose colour depends on their size?
- Synthetic diamonds
- Carbon fibres
- Liquid metals
- Quantum dots
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Quantum dots. When grains of matter shrink to nanoscale dimensions, quantum effects appear and change how they glow.
- In 2024 half of the Chemistry prize went to David Baker for computational protein design. The other half went to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for creating which AI system?
- ChatGPT
- Watson
- AlphaFold
- Deep Blue
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AlphaFold. AlphaFold2 can predict the structure of virtually all known proteins from their amino acid sequences.
- Kitagawa, Robson and Yaghi won the 2025 prize for developing what porous materials?
- Ceramic glazes
- Silicone rubbers
- Carbon nanotubes
- Metal–organic frameworks
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Metal–organic frameworks. MOFs have large spaces inside them that can hold gases and other molecules.
- Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai won the 2026 prize for non-linear effects and autocatalysis in what branch of chemistry?
- Asymmetric organic synthesis
- Food chemistry
- Atmospheric chemistry
- Nuclear chemistry
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Asymmetric organic synthesis. Asymmetric synthesis is about building molecules in only one of their two mirror-image forms, which matters a lot for medicines.
- How many individual people have received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry between 1901 and 2026, according to the Nobel Prize website?
- 118
- 50
- 200
- 231
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200. The prize has been awarded 118 times to 202 laureate awards, but Frederick Sanger and Barry Sharpless each won twice.
- Paul Berg won half of the 1980 prize for his studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, especially what?
- Recombinant DNA
- Gene therapy
- DNA fingerprints
- Cloned sheep
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Recombinant DNA. He shared the prize with Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger.
- Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta won in 1963 for discoveries in the chemistry and technology of what?
- Fertilisers
- High polymers (plastics)
- Dyes
- Explosives
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High polymers (plastics). They were honoured for their discoveries in the chemistry and technology of high polymers, the large molecules that plastics are made of.
- Sidney Altman and Thomas Cech won in 1989 for discovering that what molecule can act as a catalyst?
- Starch
- Cholesterol
- Water
- RNA
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RNA. Before this, scientists thought only proteins could act as enzymes.
- Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko won in 2004 with Irwin Rose for the discovery of what process?
- Ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation
- Sugar fermentation
- Photosynthesis
- DNA copying
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Ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation. The system tags unwanted proteins for breakdown, helping cells to control what they contain.
- Suzuki, Heck and Negishi won in 2010 for 'cross couplings' that use which metal as a catalyst?
- Aluminium
- Iron
- Palladium
- Gold
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Palladium. Palladium-catalysed cross couplings let chemists join carbon atoms to make complex molecules, including medicines.
- Roger Kornberg won in 2006 for studying how what is copied from DNA in cells with a nucleus?
- Sugar
- Fats
- Genes (transcription)
- Vitamins
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Genes (transcription). His work on the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription showed how genetic information is passed from DNA to RNA.
- In 1983 Henry Taube won for his work on the mechanisms of what kind of reaction in metal complexes?
- Crystallisation
- Combustion
- Electron transfer
- Nuclear fission
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Electron transfer. Electron transfer is the basis of many processes in batteries and living things.
- Chauvin, Grubbs and Schrock won in 2005 for developing the metathesis method in what field?
- Food preservation
- Water purification
- Organic synthesis
- Metal refining
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Organic synthesis. Metathesis is a way of swapping parts of molecules to build new ones efficiently, widely used to make medicines and plastics.
- Kenichi Fukui of Japan and Roald Hoffmann shared the 1981 prize for theories about the course of what?
- Star formation
- Plant growth
- Volcanic eruptions
- Chemical reactions
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Chemical reactions. They developed their theories independently of each other.