Name Carolyn Bertozzi Role Chemist | Fields Chemistry | |
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Institutions Stanford UniversityUniversity of California, BerkeleyLawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryUniversity of California, San Francisco Alma mater Harvard UniversityUniversity of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, San Francisco Notable awards MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1999)ACS Award in Pure Chemistry (2001)Lemelson-MIT Prize (2010)Heinrich Wieland Prize (2012) Education Awards Lemelson–MIT Prize, MacArthur Fellowship Similar People Jennifer Doudna, Andrea Bertozzi, Laura L Kiessling, Jay Keasling, Jacqueline Barton | ||
Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is an American chemist. At Stanford University, she holds the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences;. In addition, Bertozzi is 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. She received a MacArthur "genius" award at age 33, making her one of the younger 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, the National Academy of Inventors, and the Institute of Medicine. In 2014, it was announced that Bertozzi would lead ACS Central Science, the American Chemical Society's first peer-reviewed open access journal that offers all content freely to the public.
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Life and career
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, 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 various bands, including one with future Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello. After graduating she worked briefly at Bell Labs with Chris Chidsey and at Massachusetts General Hospital. Bertozzi is the daughter of physicist William Bertozzi and the younger sister of UCLA mathematician Andrea Bertozzi.
Bertozzi completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry 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. She was able to modify the protein and sugar molecules in the walls of living cells so that the cells do not reject foreign materials such as medical implants. Bertozzi joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1996. She has been an investigator with HHMI since 2000.
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, Bertozzi works actively with biotechnology start-ups. She has served on the research advisory board of GlaxoSmithKline, and has a startup of her own, Redwood Bioscience of Emeryville, California. Several of the technologies developed in her lab have been adapted for commercial use.