Carolyn R Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K Barry Sharpless awarded Nobel prize in chemistry for development of 'click chemistry'

NEW DELHI: The 2022 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Carolyn R Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”, at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on Wednesday.
Sharpless and Meldal have laid the foundation for a functional form of chemistry – click chemistry – in which molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently.
Development of pharmaceuticals
Click chemistry is utilised in the development of pharmaceuticals, for mapping DNA and creating materials that are more fit for purpose. Using bioorthogonal reactions, researchers have improved the targeting of cancer pharmaceuticals.
Bertozzi, meanwhile, has taken click chemistry to a new dimension and started utilising it in living organisms. Her bioorthogonal reactions take place without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell.
Sharpless wins second Nobel
K Barry Sharpless has become only the fifth individual to be awarded two Nobel Prizes since the award started in 1901.

Barry Sharpless receiving his second Nobel prize, in Stockholm on Wednesday.
He follows in the footsteps of double Nobel prize laureates John Bardeen, Marie Skłodowska Curie, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger.
Sharpless was awarded the Nobel chemistry prize in 2001 for his work on “chirally catalysed oxidation reactions”.

Last year the prize was awarded to scientists Benjamin List and David WC MacMillan for finding an ingenious and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules that the Nobel panel said is “already benefiting humankind greatly”.
A week of Nobel Prize announcements kicked off on Monday with Swedish scientist Svante Paabo receiving the award in medicine for unlocking secrets of Neanderthal DNA that provided key insights into our immune system.

Three scientists jointly won the prize in physics on Tuesday. Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger had shown that tiny particles can retain a connection with each other even when separated, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, that can be used for specialized computing and to encrypt information.

The awards continue with literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the economics award on October 10.

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on December 10.

The money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.
(With inputs from agencies)