2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless

Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, Barry Sharpless Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 – Photo by Ansa Foto

Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless are the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, “for the development of a new way to assemble new molecules”.

Their method, called click chemistry or click chemistry, joins molecules in a simple and efficient way.

Who are the winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Sharpless had already won the prize in 2021 and is the fifth scientist to receive two Nobel Prizes. She is 81 years old and works at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California.

Meldal is 58, however, works at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Bertozzi, 55, at Stanford, California. The scientist since the eighties does not hide that she is a lesbian is part of the Accademia dei Linei in Rome as a foreign member.

The chemistry of the snap inaugurated by Sharpless consists in ceasing to imitate nature, which is too complicated in its chemical reactions. Scripps, on the other hand, has the merit of facilitating the assembly of molecules precisely by renouncing to follow the natural processes which often make the work of chemists more complex and expensive.

Bertozzi, on the other hand, also applied the technique of instantaneous chemistry to biological molecules, making it possible to create new drugs and high-precision therapies against cancer.

Prizes awarded in recent days

The awarding of the 2022 Nobel Prizes began on Monday, with that of Medicine to the Swede Svante Paabo, who studied the DNA of Neanderthals to reveal our history. Yesterday, Tuesday October 4, the three pioneers of quantum computing, the Frenchman Alain Aspect, the American John Clauser and the Austrian Anton Zeilinger, were chosen for the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Tomorrow the Nobel Prize for Literature will be awarded

Tomorrow the Swedish Academy will announce the Nobel Prize for Literature and on Friday the Peace Prize. Monday, October 10, instead, that of the Economy.

The winners share the sum of 10 million Swedish crowns (920 thousand euros) for each discipline. The attribution procedures were decided by its inventor, Alfred Nobel. The latter wrote in his will that the prize would go to the person who would best contribute to the well-being of humanity.