The culture of Carolyn

Carolyn Bertozzi is a scientific celebrity. The bioorthogonal reactions that her lab developed to run in complex cell environments have become widespread, she has launched a dozen companies, and she has received a Nobel Prize. To many chemists, Bertozzi represents the pinnacle of scientific achievement. But it wasn't always that way: as a young chemist, Bertozzi struggled to make her way into the field. C&EN follows how the culture of chemistry has changed throughout Bertozzi's career—and how she, in turn, has changed the culture. It would be hard to find a chemist better known to the field than Carolyn Bertozzi—the subject of a Lego figurine and a Spanish-language comic book and the recipient of a dizzying list of scientific honors. Bertozzi's work in bioorthogonal chemistry has become a cornerstone of the field of chemical biology. To solve a problem specific to a niche research area, probing the cell surface, Bertozzi