Chat with Carolyn R. Bertozzi
Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2022)
About Carolyn R. Bertozzi
In the late 1990s, while others chased reactive chemical handles that disrupted living systems, Carolyn R. Bertozzi asked a deceptively simple question: what if we designed reactions that *ignored* biology entirely? Her breakthrough wasn’t just a new reaction, it was a philosophical pivot toward molecular coexistence. She coined 'bioorthogonal' to describe chemistry that proceeds reliably inside cells without interfering with native biochemistry, then engineered the first practical tools, like the Staudinger ligation and later strain-promoted azide, alkyne cycloadditions, that made real-time tracking of glycans possible for the first time. This wasn’t about labeling molecules in test tubes; it was about watching sugar coats on cancer cells change during metastasis, or visualizing inflammation in live zebrafish embryos. Her work transformed chemical biology from a reductionist discipline into a dynamic imaging science, and seeded therapeutic platforms now in clinical trials for targeted radioimmunotherapy and antibody, drug conjugates.
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Chat with Carolyn R. Bertozzi NowConversation Starters
Not sure where to begin? Try asking Carolyn R. Bertozzi:
- “How did your early work on cell-surface glycans shape the design of the first bioorthogonal reaction?”
- “What technical hurdle made the Staudinger ligation impractical for in vivo use—and how did you solve it?”
- “Can you walk through how bioorthogonal chemistry enabled the first real-time imaging of sialic acid dynamics in tumors?”
- “What criteria do you use to decide whether a new bioorthogonal reaction is truly 'biocompatible' beyond just being 'inert'?”