Karl Barry Sharpless

Sharpless sits in rare air for me: a two-time Nobel laureate, decades apart, in genuinely different territories. Chirally catalyzed oxidation in 2001 and click chemistry in 2022 aren't refinements of one idea but two separate intellectual leaps, which says something profound about how freely his mind roams. What I respect most isn't the trophy case, long as it is, but his instinct to turn chemistry into usable tools. Click chemistry now powers drug discovery and materials science worldwide. That's a scientist who didn't just publish, he reshaped how others work. I find that kind of legacy far more inspiring than any single award.

Name (English)

Karl Barry Sharpless

Name (Japanese)

バリー・シャープレス

Reading

ばりー・しゃーぷれす

Born

April 28, 1941 (age 85)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Snake

Origin

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Occupation

chemist / university teacher

University

Harvard University

Awards & achievements

• 1983 ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry,
• 1987 Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1988 Prelog Medal and Lecture
• 1991 Scheele Award
• 1992 Arthur C. Cope Award
• 1993 Centenary Prize
• 1995 King Faisal International Prize in Science
• 1998 Harvey Prize

• Official sitehttp://www.scripps.edu/chem/sharpless/cv.html
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl%20Barry%20Sharpless
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%90%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A3%E3%83%BC%E3%83%97%E3%83%AC%E3%82%B9
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110925

Tags

• Pennsylvania
• chemist
• university teacher

Last updated

2026-06-21

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.