STOCKHOLM, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) — Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless of the United States and Morten Meldal of Denmark shared the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry,” the Royal. The Academy of Sciences announced on Wednesday.
Sharpless and Meldal have laid the foundation for a functional form of chemistry, click chemistry, where molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently.
Bertozzi has taken click chemistry to a new dimension and started using it in living organisms, the academy said in a statement.
“This year’s prize in chemistry is about not overcomplicating things, instead working with what is simple and straightforward. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a simple route,” says Johan Aqvist, chairman of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.
“I can hardly breathe!” Bertozzi said in the on-site phone interview about her reactions. When she heard the news in the middle of the night, she said, “a shock is an understatement!”
This year’s prize sum is 10 million Swedish kronor (approximately 920,000 US dollars), to be divided equally between the three prize winners.
Source: sn.dk