And the Nobel Prize goes to...
And the Nobel Prize goes to...
Congratulations to Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi for being awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
As a scientific advisor to Good AI’s portfolio Mekonos, Dr. Bertozzi’s impact has been invaluable. We can’t be more excited.
Together with Dr. Morten Meldal and Dr. K. Barry Sharpless, Dr. Bertozzi is awarded for the development of click chemistry and bio-orthogonal chemistry — work that has led to a revolution in how chemists think about linking molecules together.
Click chemistry is almost like it sounds. It’s all about snapping molecules together. Imagine that you could attach small chemical buckles to different types of building blocks. Then you could link these buckles together and produce molecules of greater complexity and variation.
Sharpless on click chemistry
Shortly after Dr. Sharpless coined the concept in 2001, both he and Dr. Meldal independently discovered a chemical reaction called copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition, known today as the crown jewel of click chemistry.
Dr. Bertozzi was then able to apply this reaction to biomolecules, often found on cell surfaces, in living organisms without affecting the chemistry of the cells she was observing. Her work has led to the founding of the field of bioorthogonal chemistry. Since the early 2000s, Bertozzi’s lab and others have used these methods to answer fundamental questions about the role of sugars in biology, solve practical problems, such as developing better tests for infectious diseases, and create a new biological pharmaceutical that can better target tumors, which is now being tested in clinical trials.
Carolyn Bertozzi in her living room during the Nobel Prize Announcement ( Image Credit: Andrew Brodhead )
During the award announcement, Dr. Bertozzi, who joined remotely, acknowledged the potential of her and her fellow laureates’ work. “The field of click chemistry is still in its early phases,” she said, adding that there were “many new reactions to be discovered and invented,” as well as new ways to integrate the science in industries like biotechnology. One such application is in “drug delivery,” which involves “doing chemistry inside living patients to make sure drugs go to the right place and not to the wrong place.”
Sharing such a vision of delivering precision therapies, we are utmostly humbled to have Dr. Bertozzi serving as a scientific advisor for Mekonos since its founding.
Thank you Dr. Bertozzi.
Congratulations!