| Carolyn R. Bertozzi | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 19, 1966 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Fields | chemistry |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory University of California, San Francisco |
| Alma mater | Harvard University University of California, Berkeley University of California, San Francisco |
| Known for | bioorthogonal chemistry |
| Notable awards | MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1999) Lemelson-MIT Prize (2010) |
Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (* 19 May 1966) is an American chemist. She is the T.Z. and Irmgard Chu Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley;[1][2] Professor of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco; is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute;[3] and is the former Director of the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.[4] She received a MacArthur "genius" award at age 33,[5] making her one of the youngest scientists to receive this award. 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 and the Institute of Medicine.
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Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Bertozzi received her Bachelor's Degree summa cum laude in chemistry from Harvard University, where she worked with Professor Joe Grabowski on the design and construction of a photoacoustic calorimeter.[6] After graduating she worked briefly at Bell Labs with Chris Chidsey and at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Bertozzi completed her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in 1993 with Professor Mark Bednarski, working on the chemical synthesis of oligosaccharide analogs. She then was a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF with Professor Steven Rosen, where she studied the activity of endothelial oligosaccharides in promoting cell adhesion at inflammation sites. Bertozzi joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1996.
Bertozzi studies the glycobiology underlying diseases such as cancer, inflammatory disorders such as arthritis, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. In particular, Bertozzi has advanced understanding of cell surface oligosaccharides involved in cell recognition and inter-cellular communication. Bertozzi is credited for developing the field of bioorthogonal chemistry which employs a bioorthogonal chemical reporters, such as the azide to label biomolecules within living systems. Her lab has also developed tools for research, including chemical tools for studying glycans in living systems and more recently nanotechnologies for probing biological systems.
In addition to her academic work, several of the technologies developed in her lab have been adapted for commercial use in biotechnology start-ups.