Ryoji Noyori, a professor at Nagoya University, received the Nobel Prize in chemistry from Sweden's King Carl Gustav at an award ceremony on Monday.
Noyori, 63, shared the accolade with two U.S. scientists -- William Knowles, 84, a former scientist at Monsanto Co., and K. Barry Sharpless, 60, a professor at the Scripps Research Institute in California.
Noyori is the 10th Japanese to win a Nobel Prize and the third to get the chemistry award after Hideki Shirakawa of Tsukuba University, in 2000, and the late Kenichi Fukui in 1981.
Noyori was honored for his work on chirally catalyzed hydrogenation and oxidation reactions, a field that has contributed to the development of key drugs, including antibiotics and anti-inflammatory and heart medications.
Among the dignitaries who attended the awards ceremony, which marks the centenary of the Nobel Prize, were three past Japanese Nobel laureates: Shirakawa, Leo Esaki, the 1973 physics prize winner, and Kenzaburo Oe, who won for literature in 1994.