Stefan Bladh. (2022).Carolyn Bertozzi. Nobel Prize. https://www.nobelprize.org
Carolyn R. Bertozzi’s interdisciplinary approach to research has bridged the gap between chemistry and biology, leading to key advances in bioorthogonal chemistry. If you want to understand how she became such a decorated scientist, you have to understand both the good and bad of her life.
Let's start at the beginning of her life: growing up in a small town in Lexington Massachusetts. In Lexington, she was raised by a science-loving parent: her father, who was a physics professor at MIT. Through her father, she fell in love with science from a young age; growing up she would go to MIT’s day camp and participate in other science-related activities. Throughout her early education, she played soccer, eventually getting recruited to play at Harvard, but she decided that this was not where her true passion lay. She continued with science, landing herself at Harvard studying biology in 1984 among some of the best professors.
Throughout her time at Harvard, she faced challenges as one of the only females in an extremely prodigious program. In the months of studying at Harvard, she changed her major to chemistry after taking an organic chemistry class and falling in love with it. As she was attending Harvard she got the opportunity to work with an amazing professor all summer helping in his lab to discover new research. This led to him growing fond of her as a student, becoming a mentor to her, and helping her move on to her next life chapter. At this time Harvard was not extremely open to having women in their chemistry graduate program so her mentor suggested that she go to Berkeley. Thus after she graduated from Harvard in 1988 she then went on to attend Berkeley.
In her time at Berkeley, she spent her most creative years researching and developing solutions to problems that had never been solved. Throughout the 19 years that she was at Berkeley, she developed the techniques that would lead her to become a Nobel Prize winner. In the time that she was researching at Berkeley, she was called away to help Stanford’s Sarafan institution grow into an exquisite program. Her motto throughout raising the Sarafan program off the ground was “I try to create a diverse environment where the unexpected ideas can come up and thrive” (Stanford Chemistry, 2021). Throughout her life, she has gone back and referenced this time and time again.
Later in her life, she continued to research and gain knowledge, leading to her nomination for a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Her nomination was due to her groundbreaking research in new techniques used in biochemistry. She calls this technique bioorthogonal chemistry. This involves altering the inside of a cell without disturbing the original process of the cell. This leads to us being able to research the cell to a much greater length. Thus, Bertozzi created an extremely powerful idea that allows for the study of cells in their native state without harming them. This allows us to improve the targeting of cancerous cells.
In the end, through her innovative work, Carolyn R. Bertozzi has made significant contributions to the development of new tools and techniques. Even when her life was not easy she lived by the quote “If you learned something, it’s not a failure.” (The Nobel Prize, 2022). This helped her persevere through the life that she lived.
About the Author
Megan Dydynski is a sophomore at Northwood High School. She wants to go into premed and continue on to medical school to become a doctor. She is a member of the track team and enjoys science, art, and theater.
Sources
Carolyn Bertozzi. Bertozzi Group. (n.d.). https://bertozzigroup.stanford.edu/carolyn-bertozzi
Chemistry Nobelist Carolyn Bertozzi’s years at UC Berkeley. Berkeley. (n.d.).
Nobel Prize . (n.d.). The nobel prize in chemistry 2022. NobelPrize.org.
Oral history interview with Carolyn R. Bertozzi. Science History Institute Digital Collections.
Stanford Chemistry . (n.d.). Carolyn Bertozzi. Chemistry.
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