As he reported channel 24Barry Sharpless – now a two-time Nobel laureate – has been involved in organic chemistry his entire life. He wanted to invent chemical reactions that could occur quickly and with high efficiency in the presence of oxygen in water.

In his 2004 article, he listed several well-known such reactions and grouped them in the class of click reactions. But we can say that click chemistry itself started when Morten Meldahl published an article on catalytic azide-alkyne cycloaddition in 2002. Independent of Meldahl, this response was also reported by Barry Sharpless and colleagues in the same year.

Why is this important?

In the pharmaceutical industry, the creation of new molecules is often associated with the rejection of existing natural compounds with medicinal properties. Thanks to this, it was possible to create many structures, but it takes a long time.

Johan Oquist, chairman of the Nobel Committee, stressed that this year the prize was awarded “for the desire not to complicate things, but to work with what is easy and simple.” Apparently, functional molecules can even be created in a direct way.

Nobel Prize 2022

Nobel Week – 2022 will conclude on Monday, October 10, with the Swedish State Bank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel. This week we will find out who will receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (October 6) and for “outstanding contribution to the strengthening of peace” on the planet (October 7), meanwhile, for President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and his people. Ukraine was nominated.

The awards ceremonies will take place in a solemn setting (and offline for the first time since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic) in Stockholm on 10 December. Prize winners will receive diplomas and commemorative medals. The prize pool in each category is SEK 10 million, or approximately $900,000.