Controversy in the Royal Academy of Sciences due to the possible leak by mistake of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The name of this year's Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry could have been leaked by mistake hours before its announcement, although the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences assures that a final decision has not yet been made.

“The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry distinguishes the discovery and development of quantum dots, nanoparticles that are so small that their size determines their properties,” is stated in a statement from that institution reproduced by several Swedish media, including Dagens Nyheter, the main newspaper of that Scandinavian country.

In the statement, three scientists are named as winners, Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov, all of them linked to American universities.

“It's definitely a mistake”

“We are trying to understand what happened. We have not made any decision yet, the fact that a press release has been sent is definitely a mistake,” Heiner Linke, one of the experts on the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, told that newspaper.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has assured that the decision will be made during the last meeting of the committee, which was scheduled to begin at 7:30 local time (9:30 Spanish peninsular time), and that the announcement of the winner or winners will be made around 9:45 local time (11:45 Spanish peninsular time), as planned.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year recognized the Americans Barry Sharpless and Carolyn Bertozzi and the Dane Morten Medal for the development of click chemistry, which has improved the targeting of pharmaceutical products against cancer.