William Knowles: St. Louis Nobel Prize winner and bicyclist

It's not every day that you can bicycle or walk on a trail alongside a Nobel Prize winner. However, on any given trail in St. Louis you just might encounter Dr. William Knowles, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry. Dr. Knowles was honored in 2001 with the Nobel Prize for his work, which resulted in major advances in organic chemistry. He and his Monsanto colleagues worked on asymmetric catalysis, which is crucial in speeding up chemical reactions to provide large quantities of very pure molecules needed for the mass production of pharmaceuticals making these medicines accessible to the mass market. He and his wife, Leslie, traveled to Sweden in December 2001 to receive the award from King Carl Gustaf XVI and attend the numerous press conferences and white tie dinners.

Since then, Dr. Knowles’ life has returned to a more normal pace, including bicycling. He started bicycling in earnest 50 years ago when he bicycle commuted to his post-doctoral position at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He preferred riding his bike because he could avoid the traffic congestion and he found that his commute was actually faster.