Following the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine to Svante Paablo and the Prize in Physics to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, the scientific awards round ended today Nobel Prize in Chemistrywhich this time fell into the hands Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and C. Barry Sharpless “For the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.”
With this announcement made at 11:45 CEST at the Royal Swedish Academy of SciencesThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry is once again aimed in part at biochemistry, a discipline for which a significant proportion of awards have been made in recent years. For example, in 2020, mothers of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique received it. Although for several years they were favorites for the Nobel Prize in Medicine, the duality of biochemistry meant that they received this particular award.
Research work Bertozzi, Meldal and Sharpless it served to develop pharmaceuticals, map DNA, and create materials better suited for this purpose. He clearly deserved to climb the Nobel Prize list and enjoy 10 million SEK (€985,700) to be distributed as a prize.
What is click chemistry and why does it deserve the Nobel Prize in Chemistry?
In the past, drugs they could only be obtained from nature. Molecules present, for example, in some plants have been taken and, at best, subjected to some modifications. However, over time, a huge potential was discovered in the possibility of synthesizing molecules in the laboratory in a completely artificial way.
This greatly simplifies the task, since it does not require the depletion of natural resources. In addition, it offers many more options. But this is also complex and expensive process; which, as if this were not enough, can lead to harmful by-products that can even worsen the performance of the reaction.
Nonetheless, Barry Sharplesswho is now receiving his second Nobel Prize, was able to find a solution to the problem with what he would later dub as chemical click. It is a process that allows molecules to be built by connecting small molecular units. It’s like a molecular Lego. The process is much simpler than conventional reactions and, in addition, involves the appearance of a very small amount of secondary products.
This scientist shared the Nobel Prize with Meldal because they both presented similar studies independently at almost the same time. Both are considered the fathers of click chemistry. Relatively Bertozzi, she went even further and used this technique to develop a variant of these reactions that works inside living beings. This allowed him to map glycansmolecules formed by chains of sugars that are on the surface of cells and are of great importance.
For example, thanks to the joint discoveries of three scientists, cancer treatments are being developed that better target tumor cells. Click chemistry has a lot of potential and is sure to bring us many more surprises. Of course, they deserve that Nobel Prize.
Source: Hiper Textual
