The 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine has been announced. In this podcast, Yasemin Yüksel Durmaz and Sven Vilain discuss the award-winning research topics by approaching and interpreting from different angles.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless for their work in click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.

Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal laid the foundation for click chemistry, a functional form of chemistry in which molecular building blocks come together quickly and efficiently. On the other hand, Carolyn Bertozzi took click chemistry to a new dimension and made it possible to use it in living organisms.

Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries on human evolution.

Nobel Committee Chairman Thomas Perlmann said in a statement at Karolinska Institute that the jury awarded 67-year-old biologist Pääbo with the prestigious award “for sequencing the Neanderthal genome and establishing paleogenomics”.

Paleogenomics is defined as a science field studying the reconstruction and analysis of extinct genomic information. This study found the genetic differences between all living humans and other hominids who no longer exist. This is a step toward finding out what makes humans so special.

In order to understand the value of the research of the scientist awarded 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine and to learn about the contributions of these studies to humankind, we interviewed Yasemin Yüksel Durmaz and Sven Vilain, lecturers from Istanbul Medipol University. We thank our professors for his valuable comments.