Published 5 October 2022 by LINO News
Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022
On Wednesday, 5 October 2022, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings warmly congratulate the newly awarded Laureates, particularly as there are close links to two of the 2022 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry: Morten Meldal, is a Lindau Alumnus, in 1986 he took part in the 36th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting (Chemistry). 16 Nobel Laureates were in Lindau 36 years ago. K. Barry Sharpless who has already been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2001 is member of the Lindau Foundation Founders’ Assembly, together with more than 370 Nobel Laureates. The Lindau Meetings hope to welcome them to Lake Constance (again) soon – as well as all the other Laureates 2022. The next Lindau Meeting dedicated to chemistry will take place in 2025.
From the press release of Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:
“The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 is about making difficult processes easier. Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal have laid the foundation for a functional form of chemistry – click chemistry – in which molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently. Carolyn Bertozzi has taken click chemistry to a new dimension and started utilising it in living organisms.
Chemists have long been driven by the desire to build increasingly complicated molecules. In pharmaceutical research, this has often involved artificially recreating natural molecules with medicinal properties. This has led to many admirable molecular constructions, but these are generally time consuming and very expensive to produce.
‘This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a straightforward route,’ says Johan Åqvist, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.”
Read more about the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.