US Duo And Dane Win Nobel For 'click Chemistry'

Stockholm, Oct 5 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Oct, 2022 ) :A trio of chemists from the United States 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.

Americans Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless, together with Denmark's Morten Meldal, were honoured "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry", the jury said.

Bertozzi is the only woman among the seven Nobel laureates honoured 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 utilised 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 fibre, 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 honour.