Knowles, William Standish (1917-...), an American chemist, won a share of the 2001 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his creation of molecules that are widely used in the manufacture of drugs and other products. He shared the prize with the Japanese chemist Ryoji Noyori and the American chemist K. Barry Sharpless. Noyori and Sharpless created molecules that function in much the same way as those developed by Knowles. The three scientists worked separately.