STOCKHOLM — A trio of chemists from the
US and
Denmark who laid the foundation for a more functional form of chemistry
where molecules are snapped together on Wednesday won the Nobel Chemistry
Prize.
اضافة اعلان
Americans Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless,
together with Denmark’s Morten Meldal, were honored “for the development of
click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”, the jury said.
Bertozzi is the only woman among the seven Nobel
laureates honored so far this year, with women vastly under-represented in the
history of the prizes, especially in the science disciplines.
The chemist — who as an undergraduate at Harvard
played keyboards in a band called Bored of Education with future Rage Against
the Machine guitarist
Tom Morello — is only the eighth woman to win a Nobel
Chemistry Prize, out of 189 recipients.
The award marks the second Nobel for 81-year-old
Sharpless, who won the chemistry Nobel in 2001.
Only four other
individuals have achieved the feat of winning two Nobel Prizes, including
Polish-born Frenchwoman Marie Curie, who won the chemistry prize in 1911 after
first winning the physics prize in 1903.
She was followed by
American Linus Pauling who won for chemistry in 1954 and peace in 1962.
American John Bardeen won the physics prize in 1956 and 1972, and Britain’s
Frederick Sanger won the chemistry prize in 1958 and 1980.
To make drugs, map DNA
Click chemistry “is an elegant and efficient chemical reaction that is
now in widespread use,” the jury said in a statement.
“Among many
other uses, it is utilized in the development of pharmaceuticals, for mapping
DNA and creating materials that are more fit for purpose,” it added.
Sharpless, a
professor at Scripps Research in
California, “started the ball rolling” and
“coined the concept of click chemistry” around 2000, the jury said.
Afterwards,
Sharpless and Meldal, a professor at the University of Copenhagen,
“independently of each other, presented what is now the crown jewel of click
chemistry: the copper catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition”.
The process
allows chemists to “snap” molecules together like Lego bricks “with the help of
some copper ions”, which among other things allow for the production of new
materials.
“If a
manufacturer adds a clickable azide to a plastic or fiber, changing the
material at a later stage is straightforward,” the Nobel committee explained.
It is possible
to click in substances that conduct electricity, capture sunlight, are
antibacterial, protect from ultraviolet radiation or have other desirable
properties, it said.
While there is
widespread application of his research, Meldal said he was “very surprised and
very proud” to receive the honor.
“There are so
many good discoveries and developments in the world, it’s incredible to be in
this situation,” Meldal told Swedish public radio.
‘A new level’
Bertozzi, 55, a professor at Stanford in the
United States, was
highlighted for then taking “click chemistry to a new level”.
“She developed
click reactions that work inside living organisms. Her bioorthogonal reactions
take place without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell,” the jury said.
Her research is
now being used to investigate how these reactions can be used to diagnose and
treat cancer.
“I’m absolutely
stunned, I’m sitting here, and I can hardly breathe,” Bertozzi told reporters
via telephone, minutes after the announcement.
Silvia
Diez-Gonzaleza, a chemist who works on click chemistry at Imperial College,
London, welcomed the win.
“Thank goodness”
that the days of women not being allowed in chemistry labs are over, she told
AFP, though “there is a lot of bias still out there”.
“I want to
believe that it’s just a matter of time that as women and non-white people get
more opportunities to achieve their potential, then eventually the recognition
they get will be spread more widely.”
The Royal
Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the Nobels in the science
disciplines, has refused to introduce quotas despite the dearth of women
laureates.
Goran Hansson,
then-secretary general of the academy, told AFP last year after all of the
science nods went to men, that it wanted every laureate to be accepted “because
they made the most important discovery, and not because of gender or
ethnicity”.
The lack of
women laureates “reflects the unfair conditions in society, particularly in
years past but still existing”, he acknowledged.
This year’s
laureates will share the Nobel award sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (more
than $910,000), and will receive the prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a
ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of
scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.
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