Carolyn Bertozzi

Bertozzi was awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, jointly with Morten P. Meldal and Karl Barry Sharpless, "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry".

In 2019, she co-founded both OliLux Biosciences and Lycia Therapeutics. OliLux Biosciences develops new methods for tuberculosis detection. The founding of Lycia Therapeutics occurred when Bertozzi's group discovered lysosome-targeting chimeras (LYTACs). The new molecule class may be able to degrade some cardiovascular disease and cancer targets. Lycia Therapeutics focuses on developing technology which utilizes lysosome-targeting chimeras (LYTACs).

Bertozzi studies the glycobiology of underlying diseases such as cancer, inflammatory disorders such as arthritis, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. In particular, Bertozzi has advanced the understanding of cell surface oligosaccharides involved in cell recognition and inter-cellular communication. Bertozzi has applied the techniques of bioorthogonal chemistry to study glycocalyx, the sugars that surround the cell membrane. Her discoveries have advanced the field of biotherapeutics. Her lab has also developed tools for research. One such development is creating chemical tools for studying glycans in living systems. Her lab's development of nanotechnologies which probe biological systems lead to the development of a fast point-of-care tuberculosis test in 2018. In 2017, due to her lab's discovery of linking the sugars on the surface of cancer cells and their ability to avoid the immune system defenses, she was invited to speak at Stanford's TED talk, giving a talk entitled "What the sugar coating on your cells is trying to tell you".

She co-founded Grace Science Foundation in 2018. The foundation focuses on curing NGLY1 deficiency through developing therapeutics that are efficient and inexpensive.

In 2017, Bertozzi helped found InterVenn Biosciences, which uses mass spectrometry and artificial intelligence to enhance glycoproteomics for target and biomarker discovery, ovarian cancer diagnostics, and predicting the successes and failures of clinical trials.

Bertozzi became a co-founder of Palleon Pharma of Waltham, Massachusetts, in 2015. Palleon Pharma focuses on investigating glycoimmune checkpoint inhibitors as a potential treatment for cancer.

In 2014, she co-founded Enable Biosciences of South San Francisco, California. It focuses on biotechnologies for at-home diagnoses for type 1 diabetes, HIV, and other diseases.

She received the MacArthur "genius" award at age 33. In 2010, she was the first woman to receive the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Prize faculty award. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2005), the Institute of Medicine (2011), and the National Academy of Inventors (2013). In 2014, it was announced that Bertozzi would lead ACS Central Science, the American Chemical Society's first peer-reviewed open access journal, which offers all content free to the public. Since 2021 she has been a member of the Accademia dei Lincei. As an open lesbian in academia and science, Bertozzi has been a role model for students and colleagues.

In 2008, Bertozzi founded a startup of her own: Redwood Bioscience of Emeryville, California. Redwood Bioscience is a biotechnology company that uses SMARTag, a site-specific protein modification technology that allows small drugs to attach to sites on the proteins and can be used to help fight cancers. Redwood Bioscience was acquired by Catalent Pharma Solutions in 2014. Bertozzi remains a part of the advisory board for the biologics sector of the company.

In the early 2000s, Bertozzi and Steve Rosen co-founded Thios Pharmaceuticals, the first company to target sulfation pathways.

In 1996 Bertozzi became a faculty member in the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry and a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she served as the Director of the Molecular Foundry. She has been an investigator with HHMI since 2000. In 1999, while working with HHMI and at Berkeley, she founded the field of bioorthogonal chemistry and coined the term in 2003. This new field and technique allows researchers to chemically modify molecules in living organisms and not interrupt the processes of the cell. In 2015, Bertozzi moved to Stanford University to join the ChEM-H Institute.

Bertozzi completed her Ph.D. in chemistry at University of California, Berkeley in 1993 with Mark Bednarski, working on the chemical synthesis of oligosaccharide analogs. While at Berkeley, she discovered that viruses can bind to sugars in the body. The discovery led to her field of research, glycobiology. During Bertozzi's third year of graduate school, Bednarski was diagnosed with colon cancer, which resulted in him taking a leave of absence and changing his career path by enrolling in medical school. This left Bertozzi and the rest of the lab to complete their Ph.D. work with no direct supervision.

Carolyn Bertozzi received her A.B. summa cum laude in chemistry from Harvard University, where she worked with Professor Joe Grabowski on the design and construction of a photoacoustic calorimeter. While an undergraduate, she played in several bands, notably Bored of Education with future Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello. After graduating from Harvard in 1988, she worked at Bell Labs with Chris Chidsey.

Bertozzi is a lesbian and has been out since the late 1980s. She has a wife and three sons.

Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is an American chemist and Nobel laureate, known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term "bioorthogonal chemistry" for chemical reactions compatible with living systems. Her recent efforts include synthesis of chemical tools to study cell surface sugars called glycans and how they affect diseases such as cancer, inflammation, and viral infections like COVID-19. At Stanford University, she holds the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences. Bertozzi is also an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and is the former Director of the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.