The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will be jointly awarded by American chemist Bertosi, Danish chemist Mel Dahl, and American chemist Sharpless.

(Picture taken from Nobel's official Twitter)

[Reporter Yang Yuanting/Taipei Report] The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (Chemistry) was announced today (5th), American chemists Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Sharpless (Barry Sharpless) and Danish chemists Mel Morten Meldal won the award. Among them, the female winner Bertosi was invited to give a speech in the lecture by Academician Chen Changqian of the Institute of Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2007. Sharpless, who won the second time, has a close personal relationship with Weng Qihui, the former dean of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has visited many times. , and even interacted with Taiwanese high school students face-to-face on popular science.

Taiwan Science and Technology Media Center today analyzes the contributions of the three new winners in the field of click chemistry, inviting Lin Junhong, researcher of the Institute of Biochemistry, Academia Sinica, Chen Rongjie, deputy director and researcher of the Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica, Professor Zhan Yangxiang, Department of Applied Science, Yangming Jiaotong University, and Department of Applied Chemistry, Yangming Jiaotong University Associate Professor Wu Yangu, Professor Chen Jiantian of the Department of Chemistry of Tsingtao University, and Dr. Xiao Shijia, co-founder of Yu Shibo Biotechnology Co., Ltd. participated.

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Lin Junhong said that Sharpless won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the second time. The first time was in 2001. The reason for winning the award at that time was for his outstanding contribution to drug synthesis. Rice's contribution to click chemistry is that copper is also used as a catalyst for organic chemical reactions, which can be carried out at room temperature and pressure, and can obtain 100% yield; Chen Rongjie added that the methodology developed by Sharpless has also broken through the past. Many organic chemical reactions must be operated in organic solutions, which can be carried out in water without high biological toxicity, and can effectively link chemical molecules and cells, so they can be widely used in biological systems such as medicine.

Zhan Yangxiang added that the contribution of these three winners in click chemistry is to open the door for cell target and drug development; Lin Junhong said that the research can be practically applied to the targeted therapy of cancer, he explained, because the method can effectively use chemical reactions in a short time. A large number of molecular databases are generated within the system, and the targets to be targeted therapy are further screened from these molecules.

Both Sharpless and Bertosi visited the Academia Sinica. Lin Junhong said that both Sharpless and Weng Qihui served in the Scripps Research Institute in the United States. In 2008, he was invited to Taiwan to give a speech by the Wang Guangcan Bioorganic Chemistry Education Foundation, and later arranged a popular science speech for young students, which received a lot of responses; Chen Rongjie said that Bertosi was invited by Professor Chen Changqian from the Institute of Chemistry of Academia Sinica in 2007. Li Yuanzhe, the former dean of Academia Sinica at the time, and Weng Qihui, the then dean of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, attended the speech on the stage.

Chen Jiantian, a former student of Sharpless, recalled that his mentor often used stories to encourage him to do research, not to be too ambitious, and to continue to study in areas of interest; Lin Junhong said that Sharpless had an approachable and humorous personality, and said that Sharpless was an experimental fanatic. , often doing experiments in his own garage, and even hurt his eyes at one point.

Ma Che, a researcher at the Genome Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that Bertosi's recent important discovery is that unlike in the past, sugar molecules are linked to fat and protein. For the first time, she successfully linked sugar molecules and nucleic acids, which also opened up a new field of sugar molecule research.