The Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless “for developing a new way to assemble new molecules.” Their method, called “click chemistry”, allows you to combine the molecules together easily and efficiently.
Sharpless, 81, who had already won in 2001, is the fifth scientist to be awarded two Nobel Prizes. He works at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California. Meldal, 58, is affiliated with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Bertozzi, 55, with that of Stanford, also in California. The scientist from the 80s does not hide that she is a lesbian and she is often involved in communication initiatives. She is a member, as a foreign member, of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. When she got the call, with the announcement of her victory, from Stockholm, she was very excited: “I can barely breathe.”
The snap chemistry inaugurated by Sharpless consists in ceasing to imitate nature, which is too complicated in its architecture and chemical reactions. The La Jolla scientist has managed to make the assembly of molecules easier precisely by renouncing to follow natural processes, which sometimes make the work of chemists more complex and expensive.
Thanks to Bertozzi, the snap chemistry technique was also applied to biological molecules (in its original form it was not suitable for living beings). Applications range from the creation of new drugs to high-precision cancer therapies. “Our technique – explained the American scientist – allows us to invent completely new molecules”. By studying the surface of cancer cells – slightly different from that of healthy cells – it is possible to develop drugs that recognize them.
Last year the winners were Benjamin List and David MacMillan, also discoverers of a very efficient method for assembling useful molecules.
On Monday the prize for medicine was awarded to the Swedish Svante Paabo, who studied the DNA of primitive men to unravel our story. Three pioneers of quantum computing experiments were chosen for Physics on Tuesday: Alain Aspect from France, John Clauser from America and Anton Zeilinger from Austria.
Nobel Prize in Medicine to Svante Paabo for his discoveries on the genome of primitive men
by Elena Dusi
The Swedish Academy will announce the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature tomorrow, Thursday 6 October, at 1 pm in Stockholm. Friday will be the turn of the Peace Prize. Next Monday, October 10, the Nobel Prize for economics will be announced.
Nobel Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, “pioneers of quantum information”
by Elena Dusi
The winners share a sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (920 thousand euros) for each discipline. The award procedures were established by the Swedish inventor (his own, among others, the patent of dynamite), Alfred Nobel.
Nobel, for fear of being remembered for the invention of an instrument of destruction, wrote in his will that the prize would go to the person “who has contributed most to the well-being of humanity”.