K. Barry Sharpless (1941)

American chemist born in Philadelphia, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the Scripps Research Institute. With Tsutomu Katsuki he described in 1980 the asymmetric epoxidation of allylic alcohols with titanium and tartrate, and later the asymmetric dihydroxylation and aminohydroxylation with osmium and cinchona ligands.

He received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with Knowles and Noyori, for catalytic asymmetric oxidations. In 2001 he also proposed “click chemistry”, fast and reliable reactions for joining molecules, for which he received a second Nobel Prize in 2022, with Carolyn Bertozzi and Morten Meldal.

More information: en.wikipedia.org