"What's This Even For?"... Demanding 500 Million Despite Criticism of "Wasting Company Money," They Shook the Future World [Capturing 125 Years of the Nobel Prize]④

2025 Nobel Chemistry Prize Goes to Susumu Kitagawa
Early Research Was Criticized as "Unstable and Lacking Applications"
Opens a New Horizon in Chemistry After 33 Years

Blue LEDs, Transistors, and mRNA Technologies Didn't Reveal Their Fu

Editor's Note125 years have passed since the first Nobel Prize was awarded in 1901. Science has shifted from the era of discoveries by single geniuses to an age where thousands of people and artificial intelligence (AI) collaborate in research. The Asia Business Daily presents a seven-part series exploring how the subjects and approaches of scientific discovery have changed over 125 years of the Nobel Prize and how the prize itself reflects these transformations.

Professor Susumu Kitagawa, Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate in 2025, is explaining the structure of metal-organic frameworks (MOF). MOFs, which connect metal ions and organic molecules to create tiny internal spaces, can selectively capture or store specific gases or molecules. When Kitagawa began his research in the early 1990s, MOFs were considered unstable with no clear applications, but the research has since expanded to carbon dioxide capture, gas storage, and separation. Provided by The Nobel Prize

In 1992, Susumu Kitagawa, then a young chemist at Kinki University in Japan, created a new structure by combining metal ions and organic molecules, forming minute internal pores. Academically, it was intriguing, but its immediate applications were unclear. His research grant applications were repeatedly rejected, as the structure was considered unstable and lacked clear practical use. Nevertheless, Kitagawa persisted with his research into "empty spaces" in materials, convinced that controlling the properties of these micro-spaces would make it possible to selectively trap or release specific molecules.

In 1997, his research team reported a porous substance that could retain its structure while accepting gas molecules, which led to the development of metal-organic framework (MOF) research, where the size and properties of the micro-spaces could be designed. Today, MOFs are key materials in eco-friendly and energy fields, utilized for carbon dioxide capture, gas storage and separation, and as catalysts. Kitagawa, together with Richard Robson and Omar Yaghi, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2025 for the development of MOFs. A material for which he could hardly explain any potential application 33 years earlier ultimately opened a new horizon in chemistry.

'Overcoming Criticism of Wasting Company Money to Usher in the Era of White Light'

Another Japanese scientist, Shuji Nakamura, also devoted himself to a "technology largely dismissed as unlikely to succeed."

Professor Shuji Nakamura, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics, is looking at a blue light-emitting diode (LED) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). Nakamura developed high-brightness blue LEDs using gallium nitride (GaN) while working at Nichia Chemical Industries in Japan. The advent of bright blue LEDs was a decisive turning point that opened the era of white LEDs and high-efficiency lighting. Photo by Randall Lamb/UC Santa Barbara

After joining Nichia Chemical Industries, a small chemical company in Tokushima, in 1979, he failed to achieve any notable results for years, earning criticism that he was "just wasting the company's money." Nevertheless, in 1988, he requested a research budget of 500 million yen—about 2% of the company's annual revenue at the time—to develop a high-brightness blue LED, and the company accepted his proposal.

While most researchers at the time focused on zinc selenide (ZnSe), Nakamura chose gallium nitride (GaN), a far more challenging material. By modifying equipment himself and improving crystal quality, he eventually succeeded in developing a high-brightness blue LED in 1993. With blue added to the already existing red and green LEDs, the era of highly efficient white LED lighting began. In 2014, Nakamura received the Nobel Prize in Physics along with Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano. At the starting point, Kitagawa could see no "utility," and for Nakamura, there was no apparent "chance of success," yet their relentless pursuit of questions led to technologies that changed the world.

Smartphones and Vaccines Also Began with 'Basic Principles'

Tracing the history of the Nobel Prize in reverse reveals that such cases recur continuously. The point-contact transistor first developed at Bell Labs in 1947 was not aimed at smartphones or AI chips, but instead began from the study of amplification devices to replace vacuum tubes. Likewise, when Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough, and Akira Yoshino advanced lithium-ion battery technology in the 1970s, no one anticipated that it would become crucial for electric vehicles and energy storage systems (ESS) in the future.

Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman's 2005 discovery that modifying mRNA nucleosides could suppress unnecessary immune responses was also not research carried out with a future pandemic in mind. Fifteen years later, the combination with delivery and stabilization technologies led to the creation of vaccines, and the two were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2023.

'The Power to Wait for the Future, Beyond Immediate Use'

When basic science uncovers principles of nature, subsequent researchers and engineers refine these discoveries into applicable technologies, and businesses pave the way for commercialization. Often, new societal challenges that arise decades later give old discoveries unexpected relevance and value.

Tobias Erb, director of the Max Planck Institute in Germany, advised, "We must be careful not to evaluate fundamental discoveries solely by short-term industrial impact or quantitative indicators." He explained that even research with no currently visible applications can produce unexpected value when later combined with subsequent technologies.

This serves as an important point for the Korean scientific community as well. If research is judged only by its immediate applicability or visible outcomes, significant studies whose utility has yet to emerge may never get the chance to begin.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.