STOCKHOLM: Researchers Morten Meldal, Barry Sharpless, and Carolyn Bertozzi were awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for their work on processes that allow molecules to quickly assemble to form new compounds.
The award-giving organisation said in a statement that the techniques known as click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry are now utilised all around the world to examine cells and monitor biological processes.
Researchers have enhanced the targeting of cancer medications, which are currently being tested in clinical trials, it was stated.The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences presented the award, which is worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($915,072).
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is the third award announced over the course of six consecutive workdays. The first two awards, for physics and medicine, were announced earlier this week.
Sharpless joins a select group of researchers who have received two Nobel Awards. The other persons are Linus Pauling, who won Peace, Marie Curie, who won Physics and Chemistry, John Bardeen, who won Physics twice, and Frederick Sanger, who won Chemistry once.
When the academy called Bertozzi in California to tell her she had won, she stated, “I’m utterly surprised, I’m sitting here and I can hardly breathe.”
For their work in developing new tools to create molecules, aiding in the development of new pharmaceuticals as well as in fields like plastics, German Benjamin List and Scottish-born David MacMillan were awarded the chemistry prize for 2021.
Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes for achievements in science, literature, and peace have been given out. They were established by Swedish dynamite inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel, who was also a chemist. Economics was later included.
