Morten Meldal
Facts
© Nobel Prize Outreach. Photo: Stefan Bladh
Morten Meldal
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022
Born: 1954, Copenhagen, Denmark
Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Prize motivation: “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”
Prize share: 1/3
Work
Chemists strive to build increasingly complicated molecules. For a long time, this has been very time consuming and expensive. Click chemistry means that molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently. In 2002, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless, independently of each other, developed an elegant and efficient chemical reaction: the copper catalysed azide-alkyne cycloaddition. This is now in widespread use and is utilised in the development of pharmaceuticals, for mapping DNA and creating new materials.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
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