Who will win the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry?

It is officially fall in the Northern Hemisphere. For the science-minded, the crisp air and changing leaves bring with them the excitement of Nobel Prize season. On Wednesday Oct. 9, a select few chemists—or maybe even just one—will get a call from Stockholm. Predicting the recipients of that call has become a fall ritual here at C&EN. So yesterday we teamed up with ACS Webinars for our annual predictions webinar (ACS publishes C&EN).

C&EN Executive Editor Laura Howes hosted the hour-long discussion and, along with three panelists, wagered who will win this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The panelists were Chibueze Amanchukwu, a professor of molecular engineering at the University of Chicago and member of C&EN’s Talented 12 cohort; Steven Suib, a professor of chemistry at the University of Connecticut; and Stacey Paiva, a senior editor at Nature Chemistry.

The panelists were joined by Ching Jin of the University of Warwick. Jin, who specializes in applying computational methodologies to predict social patterns. Jin presented his analysis of the impact that prizes have on scientific networks.

During the interactive webinar, the audience got a chance to reflect on Jin’s analysis and to weigh in on who they think has the best shot at this year’s #ChemNobel prize. This year’s audience-choice winner, claiming 45% of votes, was metal-organic frameworks (MOF) maestro Omar M. Yaghi, who is also #ChemNobel webinar panelist Suib’s pick.

Much like speculating on the winners of Oscars or the FIFA World Cup, forecasting Nobel prize recipients is an exercise in fun. Our webinar is just one forum for prediction banter; other publications and analysts have also been playing the guessing game. Some of the favorites this year are next-generation DNA sequencing, molecular dynamics, clean energy, and 3D protein structure prediction.

In the reader poll run by ChemistryViews, the science news magazine of Chemistry Europe, the top contender by a large margin is once again biochemist Chi-Huey Wong, an American biochemist known for his pioneering research on glycobiology. Other favorites of ChemistryViews readers include Yaghi, followed closely by webinar panelist Paiva’s choice, Shankar Balasubramanian.

Yaghi has appeared periodically on the #ChemNobel webinar as a potential laureate. Balasubramanian and David Klenerman, pioneers of next-generation DNA sequencing, have also been mentioned for the past 3 years. Could this be their year?

Webinar panelist Amanchukwu brought back free-radical polymerization inventor Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, who was mentioned by a panelist in 2021. Howes, meanwhile, chose biochemist David Baker and Google DeepMind’s John M. Jumper and Demis Hassabis, developers of deep-learning techniques to quickly and accurately predict the shape of proteins. Her pick overlaps with one of three possible winners based on citation analysis from Clarivate. The Web of Science provider also shortlists solar hydrogen authority Kazunari Domen and computational chemists Roberto Car and Michele Parrinello, who developed the method for calculating ab initio molecular dynamics.

Other promising names and research topics have cropped up elsewhere. Online commentators suggest density functional theory experts John P. Perdew and Axel Becke, as well as bioinorganic chemists Emily Que, Eckard Münck, and Edward I. Solomon. An editorial in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry argues for property-based drug design, while one surveyed researcher in Cell Chemical Biology suggests immunotherapy as worthy of Nobel honor.

Hit play on the webinar video above to watch our panelists’ discussion. And be sure to circle back here to C&EN on Oct. 9 to see if any of our panelists triumphed. For now, the conjecture continues.