NIH Record - National Institutes of Health

Chemistry Nobel Awarded to Two NIH Grantees

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Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi
Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi

Photo:  ANDREW BRODHEAD/STANFORD UNIVERSITY

NIH supported the research of 2 of the 3 recipients of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy on Oct. 5. 

Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi and Dr. K. Barry Sharpless shared the award with Denmark’s Dr. Morten Meldal “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.” 

Dr. K. Barry Sharpless
Dr. K. Barry Sharpless

Photo:  IKE SHARPLESS/COURTESY SCRIPPS RESEARCH

Bertozzi is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass professor in the school of humanities and sciences at Stanford University and a professor of chemistry, with courtesy appointments in chemical & systems biology and radiology. 

Since 1999, she has received continuous NIH funding primarily from NCI, NIAID and NIGMS, totaling $40,089,836. 

Sharpless, the W.M. Keck Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research, has received near continuous funding from NIGMS since 1975 totaling $15,935,775. 

He was also awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his NIH-supported research on chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions. 

In addition, while NIH did not support the work of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Dr. Svante Pääbo at Max Planck Institute for evolutionary biology, Dr. Jim Mullikin at NHGRI has collaborated extensively with him.

To date, 172 NIH-supported researchers—including several who have served as NIH staff scientists—have been sole or shared recipients of 101 Nobel Prizes.

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Collins, Green, Pääbo and Mullikin stand together in front of a podium
In 2014 in Masur Auditorium, then NIH director Dr. Francis Collins (l) and NHGRI director Dr. Eric Green (r) joined future Nobelist Dr. Svante Pääbo (second from r) as he reunited with collaborator Dr. Jim Mullikin of NIH’s Intramural Sequencing Center. Read the full story at https://bit.ly/3rrQ31p.

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