St. Louisan shares Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Associated Press WriterST. LOUIS (AP) -- In more than four decades at Monsanto Co., William S. Knowles did what many researchers do: toiling with a microscope, seldom getting much attention.

Now 84 and long retired, the suburban St. Louisan learned through a 4 a.m. wakeup call Wednesday that his work mattered a lot -- with a piece of the latest Nobel Prize in chemistry, Knowles is far from anonymous.

"It just kind of overwhelmed me," Knowles said from his Kirkwood home, hours after being told his breakthrough in the late 1960s was being rewarded. "It was like, 'What, little old me?' I haven't been to sleep since. It hasn't sunk in yet.

"I never even thought such a thing was in the offing. I just really never thought I had any chance."

Knowles, who retired from Monsanto in 1986 after 44 years with the company, shares the prize with another American and a Japanese scientist for showing how to better control chemical reactions, paving the way for medicines that include a now-standard Parkinson's disease treatment.

While working for Monsanto in 1968, Knowles found a way to produce the helpful form of the amino acid L-dopa, which is used to treat Parkinson's disease.

"I'm not a spring chicken anymore," he said. "I think the field has burgeoned since then, and (the Nobel committee) recognized that."

Knowles and Ryoji Noyori, 63, of Nagoya University in Japan shared half of the $943,000 award. K. Barry Sharpless, 60, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., won the other half.

Their research deals with the fact that many molecules appear in two forms that are mirror images of each other, just like the left and right hands. Cells generally respond correctly to only one of these forms, while the other form might be harmful. Drugs often use such mirror-image molecules, and the difference between the two forms can be a matter of life and death.

Research by the Nobel winners has produced ways of making only the proper form of molecules, leading to antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, ulcer treatments, heart medications -- even flavorings and sweeteners.

Born in Massachusetts, Knowles even as a young child wanted to be a scientist and made it happen, getting an organic chemistry degree from Harvard in 1939, then a graduate degree in the field from Columbia three years later. Knowles joined Monsanto in 1942.

Knowles hasn't yet decided how he plans to spend his share of the winnings he'll get during an awards presentation Dec. 10 in Stockholm, aside from perhaps donating some.

"I haven't had a chance really to think about that," he said, having spent many of the hours after that Wednesday morning wakeup call on the telephone with well-wishers and reporters, from the United States to Germany and Sweden.

------On the Net:

Nobel site, http://www.nobel.se