Morten Meldal, former center leader, wins Nobel Prize

This week, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2022 was awarded jointly to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless.

We congratulate the three winners and especially Morten Meldal, who developed his work on the click reaction while he was the leader of the DNRF Center for Solid-Phase Organic Chemistry and Enzymatic Reaction Center (SPOCC) 1997-2007. Meldal’s pioneering work on the click reaction was published in 2002.

Professor Morten Peter Meldal received the 2022 Nobel Prize for laying the groundwork for a new form of functional chemistry: click chemistry in which molecular building blocks quickly and efficiently snap together in a special form of chemical reaction. The reaction is widely used both in industry (medical, synthesis, polymer) and in academia to form new molecules and also to click handles on existing molecules without changing their biological function.

“It is a great pleasure to see that Morten Meldal’s pioneering basic chemical research has been acknowledged with the awarding of the Nobel Prize, in recognition of his work’s huge impact on both the research community and society,” said Søren-Peter Olesen, CEO of the DNRF.