Three Scientists Receive Nobel Prize In Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists.

Eko Hot Blog reports that Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless became Nobel laureates on Wednesday for work on “click” chemistry which involves linking molecules together.

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The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the work led to “a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together.”

The Nobel Committee noted that click chemistry enables fast and straightforward reactions, where “molecular building blocks snap together quickly.” The principle can be used in developing cancer treatments and directly targeting tumour cells.

The award organisers disclosed that Sharpless and Meldal pioneered the concept before Bertozzi “took click chemistry to a new level,” by developing click reactions that work inside living organisms (or bioorthogonal reactions).

Sharpless, a professor of chemistry at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California, became the fifth person ever to win two Nobels after winning his first in 2001 for creating the concept for click chemistry.

Bertozzi, who pioneered bioorthogonal chemistry, said she was “absolutely stunned” after winning the prize. She is the eighth woman to win the Chemistry Nobel.

Meldal told the BBC he was “shaking for half an hour” after he found out he won.

The Nobel committee praised the scientists for simplifying Chemistry and making it functional.

“This year’s prize deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple,” Johan Åqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry said.

The three winners will share prize money worth $915,000 (10 million Swedish krona).

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded 114 times to 191 Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 2022. A total of 189 individuals have received the Nobels in Chemistry.

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The Nobel Prizes are being awarded throughout this week; the prizes for medicine and physics were announced on Monday and Tuesday.

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