Status: 05.10.2022 12:32 p.m
Scientists Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless will receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year. You will be awarded for the development of methods for the targeted construction of biomolecules.
This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to three researchers from the USA and Denmark. Carolyn R. Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless from the USA and Morten Meldal from Denmark will be honored for their research in the field of bioorthogonal chemistry and click chemistry, as announced by the Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.
Bertozzi is the first woman to be awarded a Nobel Prize this year. The 81-year-old Sharpless is the fifth researcher ever to receive a Nobel Prize for the second time. He had already been honored with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2001.
Click chemistry basics
According to the Nobel Committee, Sharpless and Meldal laid the foundations for what is known as click chemistry. You share the prize with Bertozzi. This took click chemistry to a new dimension and started using it for cell mapping. In addition, Bertozzi has researched so-called bioorthogonal reactions.
The concept of click chemistry makes it possible to synthesize molecules from smaller units quickly and in a targeted manner. Click chemistry is said to be used in things like drug development, DNA mapping and the manufacture of materials. Researchers have used bioorthogonal reactions to improve the targeting of cancer drugs, for example.
Thomas Brück, Technical University of Munich, on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for three molecular researchers
tagesschau24 12:00 p.m., 5.10.2022
Award endowed with around 920,000 euros
The most prestigious award for chemists is endowed with a total of ten million crowns (around 920,000 euros). The award ceremony traditionally takes place on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of the founder Alfred Nobel. Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to 187 different researchers.
Last year, the award went to German Benjamin List and Scottish-born US researcher David WC MacMillan. Both had developed methods for accelerating chemical reactions.
Nobel Prizes in Medicine and Physics announced
The scientific Nobel Prizes are often awarded to two or three scientists at the same time who, for example, have conducted research together on a topic. Such was the case with this year’s Physics Nobel Prize – three quantum researchers were honored with it: the Frenchman Alain Aspect, the American John F. Clauser and the Austrian Anton Zeilinger. All three would be honored for their work on the power of quantum mechanics.
Occasionally, however, there is only one winner, as this year was the evolutionary researcher Svante Pääbo. The Swede, who has been researching in Leipzig since 1997, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He will receive it for his research into the evolution of Homo sapiens and their extinct relatives.
The announcements of this year’s Nobel Prize winners for literature and for peace will follow on Thursday and Friday. The series ends next Monday with the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics, donated by the Swedish Reichsbank.
Christian Blenker, ARD Stockholm, on this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Tagesschau 12:00 p.m., 5.10.2022