By Cate Fox (Communications Coordinator '23)
On October 5, 2022, K. Barry Sharpless, a Friends’ Central alum of the class of 1959, was awarded his second Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to the “development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.” As of today, Barry is only the fifth scientist in history to have ever received two Nobel Prizes.
Barry has had a passion for the sciences ever since he was a student at FCS, and he was known for spending much of his time as a student here in the lab. After graduating from FCS, he continued to pursue his love of science, earning a bachelor's degree in Chemistry at Dartmouth College and his PhD in Chemistry at Stanford University. Since then, he has taught at MIT and Harvard before becoming a faculty member at the Scripps Research Institute.
While Barry graduated from FCS over 60 years ago, he was grateful for his time at FCS and has never forgotten the valuable skills he learned while studying here. He specifically describes how FCS gave him the opportunity to learn German, which has allowed him to read old chemistry papers published in that language. With two Nobel Prize awards under his belt, K. Berry Sharpless can be considered a leading scientist in the world of chemistry.
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