Karl Barry Sharpless (born April 28, 1941) is an American stereochemist. He is a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry, known for his work on stereoselective reactions and click chemistry.

Sharpless was awarded half of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions", and one third of the 2022 prize, jointly with Carolyn R. Bertozzi and Morten P. Meldal, "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry". Sharpless is the fifth person (in addition to two organizations) to have twice been awarded a Nobel prize, along with Marie Curie, John Bardeen, Linus Pauling and Frederick Sanger, and the third to have been awarded two prizes in the same discipline (after Bardeen and Sanger).

Early life and education

Sharpless was born April 28, 1941, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His childhood was filled with summers at his family cottage on the Manasquan River in New Jersey. This is where Sharpless developed a love for fishing that he would continue throughout his life, spending summers in college working on fishing boats. He graduated from Friends' Central School in 1959, and continued his studies at Dartmouth College, earning an A.B. degree in 1963. Sharpless originally planned to attend medical school after his undergraduate degree, but his research professor convinced him to continue his education in chemistry. He continued post-doctoral work at Stanford University (1968–1969) with James P. Collman, working on organometallic chemistry. Sharpless then moved to Harvard University (1969–1970), studying enzymology in Konrad E. Bloch's lab. While at Stanford, Sharpless discovered Sharpless asymmetric epoxidation, which was used to make (+)-disparlure. , Sharpless led a laboratory at Scripps Research. <!--This chemical is a spongy moth pheromone and was used by Sharpless to perform demonstrations that showed the efficacy of the reaction after he returned to MIT.

In 2001 he was awarded a half-share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions (Sharpless epoxidation, Sharpless asymmetric dihydroxylation, Sharpless oxyamination). The other half of the year's Prize was shared between William S. Knowles and Ryōji Noyori (for their work on stereoselective hydrogenation).

<!--His group has also successfully epoxidized (using racemic tartaric acid) a C-86 Buckminster Fullerene ball, employing p-cresol as solvent.

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The term "click chemistry" was coined by Sharpless around the year 2000, and was first fully described by Sharpless, Hartmuth Kolb, and M.G. Finn at The Scripps Research Institute in 2001. This involves a set of highly selective, exothermic reactions which occur under mild conditions; the most successful example is the azide alkyne Huisgen cycloaddition to form 1,2,3-triazoles.

, Sharpless has an h-index of 130 according to Scopus.

Awards and honors

thumb|Sharpless (center) with [[click chemistry collaborators M.G. Finn (left) and Hartmuth C. Kolb (right) at the 2022 Nobel awards ceremony]]

Sharpless is a two-time Nobel laureate. He is a recipient of the 2001 and 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on "chirally catalysed oxidation reactions", and "click chemistry", respectively.

He was awarded the 2001 Wolf Prize in Chemistry together with Henri B. Kagan and Ryoji Noyori “for their pioneering, creative and crucial work in developing asymmetric catalysis for the synthesis of chiral molecules, greatly increasing humankind's ability to create new products of fundamental and practical importance”.

In 2019, Sharpless was awarded the Priestley Medal, the American Chemical Society's highest honor, for "the invention of catalytic, asymmetric oxidation methods, the concept of click chemistry and development of the copper-catalyzed version of the azide-acetylene cycloaddition reaction". He received the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists in 2023.

He is Distinguished University Professor at Kyushu University. He holds honorary degrees from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (1995), Technical University of Munich (1995), Catholic University of Louvain (1996) and Wesleyan University (1999).

References

  • K. Barry Sharpless at The Scripps Research Institute
  • including the Nobel Lecture December 8, 2001 The Search for New Chemical Reactivity and the award 2022