Chesterfield Nobel Prize Winner Dies; Monsanto Chemist

Chesterfield resident, chemist and 2001 Nobel Prize winner William S. Knowles, 95, died Wednesday, according to an obituary in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Monday.

Knowles was a chemist at Monsanto for 44 years, retiring in 1986. Chesterfield has a Monsanto campus, next door to City Hall.

In 1968, Knowles and two other chemists discovered a better way to create molecules for making drugs to battle Parkinson's Disease. But the trio didn't win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work until 2001.

Knowles shared half the Nobel Prize with Ryoji Noyori, and K. Barry Sharpless won the other half.

Family members said Knowles died of complications related to ALS, according to the Post-Dispatch. ALS was once known as "Lou Gehrig's disease" and is a neurodegenerative disease, causing paralysis.

A service will be at The Church of the Good Shepherd, 1166 S. Mason Rd., Town and Country, on Saturday, June 30, 2pm.

For more information about Knowles, click on the article here

Monsanto said after the Nobel was announced that Knowles' research 'changed the face of modern medicine,'" according to the Post-Dispatch.