Three ‘click chemistry’ scientists win Nobel prize

Three scientists who created a way to "click" molecule together like building blocks, even inside living organisms, have been awarded a prize for their work.

Four people were honoured for their work, which included finding and exploiting elegant and efficient chemical reactions to create complex molecule for the pharmaceutical industry.

The award is worth 10 million Swedish kronor and will be shared among the winners. The prize was for the development of click chemistry and bio-orthogonal chemistry, according to the committee.

The first time Sharpless won a chemistry prize was in 2001 for work on "chirally catalysed oxidation reactions."

Only eight women have ever won the chemistry prize. Sharpless won the chemistry prize.

Svante Pbo, a geneticist from Sweden, won the prize for his work on ancient DNA and the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of modern humans.

Three scientists were awarded the physics prize on Tuesday for their work on quantum entanglement, which was described by Einstein as "spoochy action at a distance". Their work paved the way for research into quantum computers.