Nobel prize for Chemistry 2022

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and Barry Sharpless for their pioneering work in the field of “click” chemistry.

Conceptually, click chemistry is a bit like molecular Lego: it’s a way of stably snapping together the building blocks of molecules to efficiently construct bigger, more complex chemicals.

Imagine trying to assemble a complex piece of flatpack from Ikea: you have all the pieces, and you know what the end result should look like, but you don’t have enough pairs of hands to stop the thing wobbling all over the place while you add the next component. The result is that it falls apart faster than you can make it!

Click chemistry basically solves this problem by handing the builder a bunch of cable ties with which to hold the rights bit of his molecule together so it doesn’t fall apart during construction.

The result is that, broadly, if we know what molecule we want to make, now we can use click chemistry to create it, but without the lengthy reactions, wrong turns, or low efficiency of the past.

From chemical manufacturing and engineering, to the pharmaceutical industry, the potential of the technique is huge. And because the technique can also be water-based and made to work without resorting to harmful conditions or substances, it can even be applied inside living cells.

This was the breakthrough demonstrated by Carolyn Bertozzi.

She added a “click” chemical to cultured cells, which incorporated them into the sugars they produce internally; this enabled Bertozzi to hitch up coloured dyes to track how key sugar-containing molecules are moved and processed, and even how whole cells move and migrate.

This has helped subsequently to reveal how cancer cells sidestep our immune systems and spread, and led to techniques that mean we can target radiotherapy directly to tumours meaning healthy cells nearby are less likely to be harmed. 

Bertozzi said she was absolutely stunned to get the call from Stockholm. Sharpless, though, is likely taking it in his stride: he’s won the Chemistry Nobel Prize once already. For him, presumably, chemistry just clicks...