On Wednesday, three scientists were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a way to “join molecules” that can be used to design better medicines.
Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless and Danish scientist Morten Meldal were cited for their work on click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions, which are used to make cancer drugs, map DNA and create materials tailored for a specific purpose.
“It’s all about binding molecules together,” said Johan Aqvist, a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences who announced the winners Wednesday at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Sharpless, 81, who previously won a Nobel Prize in 2001 and is now the fifth person to receive the prize twice, first proposed the idea of connecting molecules using chemical “buckles” around the switch millennium, Aqvist said.
“The problem was finding good chemical buckles,” he said. “They have to react to each other easily and specifically.”
Meldal, 68, who is based at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Sharpless, who is affiliated with Scripps Research, California, independently found the first such candidates that would readily join together but not with other molecules, leading to applications in the manufacture of medicines and polymers.
Bertozzi, 55, who is based at Stanford University in California, “took click chemistry to a new level,” the Nobel panel said.
He found a way to make click chemistry work inside living organisms without disrupting them, establishing a new method known as bioorthogonal reactions. These reactions are now used to explore cells, track biological processes, and design experimental cancer drugs that work more specifically.
Bertozzi said he was “absolutely stunned” to receive the award.
“I’m still not entirely sure it’s real, but it’s getting more and more real,” he said.
Meldal said he received a call from the Nobel panel about half an hour before the public announcement.
“They (…) told me not to tell anyone. So I sat in my office and shook my pants in fear,” he told The Associated Press. “This is a great honor.”
Meldal started out as an engineer. “But I wanted to understand the world, so I thought chemistry would give me the solutions,” he told the AP.
Nobel Prize in Physics to a trio for their work in quantum mechanics
Three scientists jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their work on the science of quantum information that has important applications, for example in the field of encryption.
Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discovering the way in which particles known as photons can link, or “entangle”, with each other even when they are separated by great distances
“Quantum information science is a vibrant and rapidly developing field,” said Nobel committee member Eva Olsson. “It has broad and potential implications in areas such as secure information transfer, quantum computing and sensing technology.”
“Its origin can be traced back to quantum mechanics,” he said. “Their predictions have opened the doors to another world and also shaken the foundations of how we interpret measurements.”
Speaking by phone at a news conference after the announcement, Zeilinger said he was “still shocked” to learn he had received the award.
“But it’s a very positive shock,” said Zeilinger, 77, who lives at the University of Vienna.
Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger figure in Nobel speculation for more than a decade. In 2010 they won the Wolf Prize in Israel, seen as a possible precursor to the Nobel.
Although physicists often tackle problems that at first glance seem far removed from everyday concerns—tiny particles and the great mysteries of space and time—their research provides the foundation for many practical applications of science.
Last year the prize was awarded to three scientists, Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi, whose work has helped explain and predict complex forces of nature, thereby expanding our understanding of climate change.
Nobel prize for medicine for the Swede who discovered the secrets of Neanderthal DNA
The techniques pioneered by Paabo allowed researchers to compare the genomes of modern humans and those of other hominids: Denisovans and Neanderthals.
“Just as you do an archaeological dig to find out about the past, we dig into the human genome,” he said at a press conference held by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
Swedish scientist Svante Paabo in Leipzig, Germany. (AP)
While Neanderthal bones were first discovered in the mid-19th century, only by understanding their DNA, often referred to as the code of life, have scientists been able to fully understand the links between the species.
This included the time when modern humans and Neanderthals diverged as a species, about 800,000 years ago.
“Paabo and his team also surprisingly found that gene flow had occurred from Neanderthals to Homo sapiens, showing that they had children together during periods of cohabitation,” said Anna Wedell, chair of the Nobel Committee.
This transfer of genes between hominid species affects how the immune system of modern humans reacts to infections, such as the coronavirus. People outside of Africa have 1 to 2 percent of Neanderthal genes. Neanderthals were never in Africa, so no direct contribution to sub-Saharan African people is known.
Paabo and his team succeeded in extracting DNA from a small finger bone found in a cave in Siberia, leading to the recognition of a new species of ancient humans they named the Denisovans.
Wedell called it “a sensational discovery” that showed Neanderthals and Denisovans were sister groups that split from each other about 600,000 years ago. Denisovan genes have been found in up to 6% of modern humans in Asia and Southeast Asia, indicating that interbreeding also took place.
“By mixing with them after migrating out of Africa, Homo sapiens picked up sequences that improved their chances of survival in their new environments,” Wedell said. For example, Tibetans share a gene with Denisovans that helps them adapt to high altitude.
Paabo said he was surprised to learn of his win and at first thought it was an elaborate prank by his teammates or a call about his summer home in Sweden.
“So I was just drinking the last cup of tea to pick up my daughter from her nanny where she’s spent the night, and then I got this call from Sweden,” she said in an interview on the Awards’ homepage Nobel. . “I thought, ‘Oh, the lawnmower is broken or something'” at the summer house.
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for his discoveries about human evolution. (AP)
He also pondered what would have happened if Neanderthals had survived another 40,000 years.
“Would we see even worse racism against Neanderthals, because they were somehow different from us? Or would we actually see our place in the living world very differently when we have other forms of humans there that are very similar to us, but still different,” he said.
Paabo, 67 years old, completed his award-winning studies at the University of Munich and the Max Planck Institute. During the celebrations after the press conference in Leipzig, his teammates threw him into a pool of water. Paabo took it in good humor, splashing his feet and laughing.
Paabo’s father, Sune Bergstrom, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1982, the eighth time that a laureate’s son or daughter also won a Nobel Prize. In his book “Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes,” Paabo described himself as Bergstrom’s “secret illegitimate son,” something he also briefly mentioned Monday.
His father took “a lot” of interest in his work, he said, but it was his mother who encouraged him the most.
“The biggest influence in my life was definitely my mother, who I grew up with,” Nobel said in the interview. “And in a way, it makes me a little sad that he won’t be able to live to see this day. He was very dedicated to science, and he stimulated and encouraged me a lot over the years.”