Ryoji Noyori, 63, a Nagoya University professor, said here Wednesday that receiving the Nobel Prize is the greatest honor for a researcher in the natural sciences.
"The Nobel Prize is the most coveted prize for a scientist, and I feel honored to have won it," he said at a news conference at the university.
Noyori is the 10th Japanese to win a Nobel Prize and the country's third person to receive the chemistry award, following Hideki Shirakawa, a professor emeritus at Tsukuba University, in 2000, and the late Kenichi Fukui, in 1981.
Born Sept. 3, 1938, in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, Noyori graduated from Kyoto University in 1961 and earned a doctorate there in 1967. He became a professor at Nagoya University in 1972 at the age of 33.
He was awarded the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award by the American Chemical Society in 1996 and 1997, and Saudi Arabia's King Faisal International Prize for Chemistry in 1999.
He also won the 2001 Wolf Foundation Prize in chemistry, sharing it with Sharpless and Henri Kagan of Paris-Sud University in France.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi telephoned Noyori to congratulate him on his award.
"This is good news," Koizumi told reporters at his official residence after making the call. "It is the most delightful news of the day. It gives us hope."