The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless on Wednesday for the development of click chemistry and biological orthogonal chemistry.
Dr Bertozzi is the eighth woman to be awarded the prize and Dr Sharpless is the fifth scientist to be honored with two Nobels, the committee noted.
Johan Aqvist, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, said that this year’s prize deals with “problems that are not too complicated, instead working with what is easy and simple”.
“The chemical reaction is almost like it sounds,” he said. “It’s all about putting molecules together. Imagine that you could attach small chemical keys to different types of building blocks. You can then link these keys together and create molecules of greater complexity and variation. “
Dr Aqvist added: “The point is to find good chemical keys. “They have to react to each other, easily and concretely. Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless independently found the perfect first candidates that would pair up easily, and importantly, wouldn’t stick to anything else. “
Everything you need to know about the Nobel Prize
Dr. Bertozzi emphasized the importance of click therapy in medicine and “drug delivery,” which involves “doing chemistry inside a living patient to make sure the drug gets to the right place and doesn’t go to the wrong place.” “
“The field of stimulant chemistry is still in its early stages,” she said, adding that there are “many new reactions discovered and invented,” as well as new applications being found in industries such as biotechnology, treatment and diagnosis of diseases.
“These are areas that will be hit very hard by click chemistry, and they happen,” she said.
Dr Aqvist notes that click chemistry “can now be used to build drug molecules, polymers, new materials and more”.
Before the award was announced on Wednesday, the committee had suggested that the award could once again be given to a woman, with a pair of Twitter posts highlighting Marie Curie and 2020 winners, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna.
“I was completely stunned. I’m sitting here and having trouble breathing,” Dr. Bertozzi said on a call with the committee. “I’m still not entirely positive that it’s real, but it’s getting more real by the minute.”
The committee also informed about how rare it is for scientists to win two Nobels, noting that Curie is one of the few to have done so. Dr. Sharpless, the committee was later noted, became the fifth member of that club.
This is the third science Nobel to be awarded this week. The award is one of the highest honors in science, recognizing groundbreaking contributions in their field.
Who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2021?
The award was given to Benjamin List and David WC MacMillan because they have developed a tool to accelerate research into new drugs and reduce the impact of chemistry on the environment.
Who else won the Nobel Prize in science this year?
When will the other Nobel Prizes be announced?
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The Nobel Prize in Literature will be awarded on Thursday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, Abdulrazak Gurnah won for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of colonial influences and the fate of refugees in the chasm between cultures and continents.”
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The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. Last year, Maria Ressa and Dmitri A. Muratovboth journalists, won for their efforts to protect press freedom.
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Next week, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be presented on Monday by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm. Last year, the award went to David Card, Joshua D. Angrist and Guido W. Imbens.
All award announcements will also live streaming by the Nobel Prize organization. The winners will receive their awards at a ceremony in Stockholm in December.
