Three researchers are awarded the chemistry Nobel Prize for their “ingenious” molecule-building tool

• Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• They are recognized for developing the fields of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.
• Click chemistry could have practical applications in the creation of drugs and medical treatments.

The work of Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless has resulted in “an inventive instrument for creating molecules,” earning them the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The group was recognized for creating and developing the fields of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry, which, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, “led to a revolution in how chemists conceive about joining molecules together.”

According to the committee, click chemistry offers quick and simple reactions in which “molecular building blocks snap together swiftly.” The idea could have practical applications in the creation of drugs and medical treatments, such as more precise cancer therapies.

Before Bertozzi “taken click chemistry to a new level,” the organizers said that Sharpless and Meldal pioneered the idea by creating click reactions that function inside live creatures (or bioorthogonal reactions).

She explained over the phone to reporters at the winners’ press conference that her discoveries are helping scientists “conduct chemistry inside human patients to make the treatments go to the appropriate location” and “find new sorts of molecules we didn’t know existed.”

Bertozzi, a professor at Stanford University in California, claimed that she learned of her victory in the middle of the night while traveling to the west coast of the country. She expressed her reaction by saying, “I can hardly breathe.”

Sharpless, meantime, joined a select group of notable chemists, such as Marie Curie and Frederick Sanger, by becoming the sixth person to ever earn two Nobel Prizes. In 2001, he was awarded the chemistry prize.

The physics and medicine Nobel Prizes were revealed on Monday and Tuesday, respectively. The Nobel Prizes are being presented throughout the week.

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