3 chemists awarded with Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022
A trio of chemists from the US and Denmark who built the groundwork for a more functional form of chemistry were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday.
The judges awarded Morten Meldal of Denmark, Carolyn Bertozzi, and Barry Sharpless of America “for the creation of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”
For 81-year-old Sharpless, who earned the chemistry Nobel in 2001, the honour represents his second Nobel.
The committee observed that Dr. Bertozzi is the eighth woman to receive the award, while Dr. Sharpless is the fifth scientist to receive two Nobel prizes.
Since 2000, the three chemists have been working independently to create functional molecules that, according to the Nobel committee, led to a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together”.
The chemistry committee’s head, Johan Aqvist, stated that this year’s prize focused on “working with what is easy and simple rather than overcomplicating problems.”
Click chemistry, a term Dr. Sharpless created in 2000, is virtually exactly what it sounds like, the speaker claimed: “It’s all about snapping molecules together. Imagine that you could attach small chemical buckles to different types of building blocks. Then you could link these buckles together and produce molecules of greater complexity and variation”.
Soon after Dr. Sharpless developed the idea, he and Dr. Meldal separately made the chemical discovery known as “the copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition,” known today as the crown jewel of click chemistry.
Following the announcement of the winners, Olof Ramström, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, remarked in a briefing, “When this reaction was found, it was like opening the floodgates. We used it to everywhere to build everything”.
3 chemists awarded with Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022
Dr. Bertozzi was able to adapt this reaction to biomolecules in living things, while analysing the chemistry of the cells. These so-called bio-orthogonal reactions have been widely applied in the material sciences, DNA sequencing, and pharmaceutical advancements in cancer.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the third Nobel this week for chemistry. The prize’s total worth is $915,072. following the physiology or medical awards on Monday and the physics awards on Tuesday. The awards rank among the highest in the field of science.
Barry Sharpless has just become the fifth individual to be awarded two Nobel Prizes.
He follows in the footsteps of double #NobelPrize laureates John Bardeen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger.
Sharpless was awarded the chemistry prize in 2001 and 2022 pic.twitter.com/iQg0FL79zg
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2022
