Carolyn Bertozzi

Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi encountered several obstacles to her educational career, but persevered and has become a well-known biochemist. She invented bioorthogonal chemistry, chemical reactions that neither react with nor interfere with a biological system although they take place in a biological environment. Her work has provided unique ways to image and understand cellular functions related to glycans, the sugars on the surfaces of human cells, and has implications for the treatment of cancer, inflammatory diseases, tuberculosis, and some viruses. She has also invented a form of click chemistry, chemistry based on combining modular chemical structures into a compound, that is compatible with living organisms, for which she shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022. Dr. Bertozzi has been instrumental in the establishment of several companies to commercialize the work in her lab. This chapter discusses the main components of human cells.