The 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced Wednesday, October 10, 2007. This year, the award will go to Gerhard Ertl of Germany for his work in laying the foundations of surface chemistry.

The prize is awarded every year on December 10 in Stockholm, Sweden. Recipients are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Recent recipients:

- 2006: Roger D. Kornberg, "for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription."

- 2005: Yves Chauvin, Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock, "for the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis."

- 2004: Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose, "for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation."

- 2003: Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon, "for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes."

- 2002: John B. Fenn, Koichi Tanaka and Kurt Wüthrich, "for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules."

- 2001: William S. Knowles and Ryoji Noyori, "for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions," and K. Barry Sharpless, "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions."

- 2000: Alan Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa, "for the discovery and development of conductive polymers."

- 1999: Ahmed Zewail, "for his studies of the transition states of chemical reactions using femtosecond spectroscopy."

- 1998: Walter Kohn, "for his development of the density-functional theory," and John Pople, "for his development of computational methods in quantum chemistry."

- 1997: Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker, "for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)," and Jens C. Skou, "for the first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme."

SOURCE: The Nobel Foundation