The discoveries of Americans Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless and Dane Morten Meldal gave rise to “click” and “bio-orthogonal” chemistry, two areas of modern chemistry.
Article written by
Published
Update
Reading time : 1 min.
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded, Wednesday, October 5, to the Americans Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless and to the Dane Morten Meldal for their work on “click” and “bio-orthogonal” chemistryannounced the Nobel Committee from Stockholm (Sweden).
Barry Sharpless, 81, is only the fifth person to win a Nobel twice. He had already won the chemistry prize in 2001 for his discoveries on the technique of asymmetric catalysis.
BREAKING NEWS:
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2022 #NobelPrize in Chemistry to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.” pic.twitter.com/5tu6aOedy4— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2022
The American researcher, based in California, and the 58-year-old Dane Morten Meldal, of the University of Copenhagen, are crowned for their pioneering work in “click chemistry”, a new form of combining molecules. This is used in particular to develop pharmaceutical treatments, map DNA or create new materials.
The American Carolyn Bertozzi, 55, is sacred for the invention of bio-orthogonal chemistry, a chemical reaction described as being able to be initiated in a living organism, but without disturbing or changing its chemical nature.
The German Benjamin List and the Briton David Macmillan were rewarded in 2021 for having invented a new type of catalysts to manufacture new molecules, at a lower cost and in a cleaner way. In 2020, the French Emmanuelle Charpentier and the American Jennifer Doudna were awarded for the “molecular scissors”.