The first "two-time Nobel Prize winner" in the 21st century was born. In the history of the Nobel Prize, only Madame Curie, John Barding, Linus Carl Pauling, Frederick Sanger and others have won the Science Prize twice.

On October 5th local time, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that it would award the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless for their contributions in the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.

The first "two-time Nobel Prize winner" was born.

In the history of Nobel Prize , only Madame Curie , John Barding , Linus Carl Pauling , Frederick Sanger and others have won science awards twice. Among them, Sanger was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1958 and 1980. In more than 40 years since then, no scientist has been able to "scort twice" at the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. And this time, Carl Barry Sharples "breaks out of the siege" and wins the prize for the second time: As early as 21 years ago, due to his pioneering contributions in the field of asymmetric catalytic oxidation, he shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with American scientist William Knowles and Japanese scientist Ryoji Nori.

Professor Sharples was born on April 28, 1941 in Philadelphia, USA. In 1959, he entered the Dartmouth College to take university courses. In 1968, he received his doctorate degree from Stanford University , and then engaged in postdoctoral research at Stanford University and Harvard University . He served as a professor at MIT and Stanford University. He began to transfer to the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in 1990 as a W. M. Keck lecture professor.

According to the official website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, click chemistry is a synthetic concept that was initially proposed by Sharplace in 1998 and gradually improved afterwards. Its core concept is: synthetic chemistry should be guided by molecular functions, and the chemical synthesis of various molecules can be quickly and reliably through simple splicing of small units. Sharples published the first two foundational papers on click chemistry in 2001 and 2002. The number of citations in these two papers has exceeded 20,000, which may be a height that others will never reach in their lifetime.

Lost an eye in the experiment, and likes fishing the most. I almost became a fisherman. In 1970, shortly after Sharples obtained an assistant professor position at MIT, he suffered an unfortunate accident in an experiment and blinded one eye. However, the accident did not affect Sharplace's chemical career. Although he was blind in one eye, he quickly returned to his beloved laboratory. What is even more commendable is that unlike most scholars engaged in basic research, Sharplace has always had a special liking for practical chemistry. The most well-known of its scientific contributions are three chemical reactions named after Sharplace: catalytic asymmetric epoxidation reaction, dihydroxylation reaction and ammonia hydroxylation reaction.

In addition to consuming chemistry, Sharples likes to do the most is fishing, which may be related to his birth at the beach.

"The ocean is so wonderful. Everything can emerge from the sea. Even if there is a monster Godzilla , it may be." The ocean aroused Sharplace's initial curiosity. When he was a child, he always ran to the beach to pick up various creatures with a small shovel.

This made many people think that Sharples would embark on the path of biology research. In fact, after graduating from high school, he became a pre-med student and only changed his way into the world of chemistry at the advice of his teacher.

After being admitted to Stanford University, Sharples has never put too much effort in physics and chemistry. Even because he failed the exam, he once thought that he would not be allowed to work in the laboratory, but would go back to his hometown to be a fisherman.

likes Chinese culture very much, and appreciates the "Tao Te Ching"

Sharplats is very destined to be with China. According to information, on November 22, 2019, Sharples was elected as a foreign academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. In recent years, his figure has also appeared frequently in China, committed to promoting international cooperation in chemistry research, and young Chinese scientists have been able to appreciate the master's humor and wisdom up close. He also likes Chinese culture very much, especially the family concept that can unite many people.He admired a sentence from Laozi in the "Tao Te Ching", "so it is profitable, but nothing is useful." He believed that this sentence reveals the philosophical truth in "click chemistry": the combination of carbon-heteroatoms that cannot usually react seems useless, but when a special functional group is brought, it will be highly selective. For example, in the second generation of "click chemistry" reaction that Professor Sharples is studying, small molecules with sulfhydryl and fluorine groups can accurately identify proteins that can bind to them and form a fairly stable covalent bond .

When I heard that Barry Sharples won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the second time, I was very excited by the academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the executive vice president of Shanghai Jiaotong University Ding Kuiling . He predicted that Sharples would win the Nobel Prize for the second time many years ago. When talking about the latest research results, Sharples would dance like a child; his thinking jumped another hundred and eight thousand miles, leading the audience to experience one brain "surfing" after another. In Ding Kuiling's words, Sharples is a pure scientist and a "scientific urchin".

Source: CCTV News, The Paper, China Science Daily, Wenhui Daily, etc.

Editor: Liu Dan