Professor Carolyn Bertozzi

Professor Carolyn Bertozzi's research interests span the disciplines of chemistry and biology with an emphasis on studies of cell surface sugars important to human health and disease. Her research group profiles changes in cell surface glycosylation associated with cancer, inflammation and bacterial infection, and uses this information to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, most recently in the area of immuno-oncology.

Named a MacArthur Fellow in 1999, Carolyn has received many awards for her dedication to chemistry, and to training a new generation of scientists fluent in both chemistry and biology. She has been elected to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and received the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, and the Chemistry of the Future Solvay Prize, among others.

In 2022, Carolyn jointly received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, with Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal, for pioneering click chemistry and using it to map glycans on the surface of living cells without disturbing cell function. To do this, she developed reactions called bio-orthogonal reactions, which are now being used to aid cancer drug development