China News Service, Shanghai, November 7th (Reporter Zheng Yingying) "I am not good at planning, but I have been able to memorize the periodic table of elements since I was a child. For me, (scientific) discovery is to go fishing in the periodic table. '", K. Barry Sharpless, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice, shared his research experience at the 5th World Top Scientists Forum held in Shanghai.
Sharpless, who was born in the United States in 1941, is 81 years old this year.
In 2001, when he was 60 years old, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with two other scientists for his achievements in the field of chiral catalytic oxidation reactions.
After a lapse of 21 years, he and two other scientists won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.
Talking about the experience of winning the prize twice, he said, "There are many perfect (chemical) reactions in nature, and nature doesn't care about these reactions, the main thing is that we want to use these reactions. And being able to find these chemical reactions, is The reason I was able to win the Nobel Prize twice is my luck."
In his view, nature is wonderful, it has its own evolutionary process, and it is a miracle that researchers can participate in it.
He said that engaging in chemistry is to seek a connection with nature. "In chemistry, very few can actively control it. Scientists in the field of chemistry are just trying to find this connection with nature."
It's hard to explain the process, he said, but until they get a perfect chemistry, everything is unknown, "never known in advance, and suddenly there's a perfect chemistry; then 10 years later, there's another perfect chemistry," he said. chemical reaction."
As his former mentor, Van Tamelen (referring to: Professor Eugene E. van Tamelen) told him, "Barry, you never want to do what you already know. I can do it myself.”
Sharpless said that Professor Van Tamerlen was the person who inspired him the most.
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