Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (born October 10, 1966) is a prolific American chemist known for her wide-ranging work spanning both chemistry and biology. She coined the term "bioorthogonal chemistry"^[2] for chemical reactions compatible with living systems. Her recent efforts include synthesis of chemical tools to study cell surface sugars called glycans and how they impact diseases such as cancer, inflammation, and viral infections like COVID-19.^[3]  At Stanford University, she holds the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professorship in the School of Humanities and Sciences.^[4] Bertozzi is also an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)^[5] and is the former Director of the Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.^[6] She received the MacArthur "genius" award at age 33.^[7] 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 (2005), the Institute of Medicine (2011), and the National Academy of Inventors (2013). In 2014, it was announced that Bertozzi would lead ACS Central Science, the American Chemical Society's first peer-reviewed open access journal, which offers all content free to the public.^[8] As an open lesbian in academia and science, Bertozzi has been a role model for students and colleagues.^[9][10]

After graduating from Berkeley with a Ph.D., Bertozzi was a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) with Steven Rosen, where she studied the activity of endothelial oligosaccharides in promoting cell adhesion at inflammation sites.^[18][19] While working with Rosen at UCSF, Bertozzi was able to modify the protein and sugar molecules in the walls of living cells so that the cells accept foreign materials such as implants.^[20]

Bertozzi joined the Berkeley faculty in 1996.^[18]  She has been an investigator with HHMI since 2000.^[6] In 1999, while working with HHMI and at Berkeley, she founded the field of bioorthogonal chemistry and coined the term in 2003.^[21][22][23]  This new field and technique allows researchers to chemically modify molecules in living organisms and not interrupt the processes of the cell.^[24] In 2015, Bertozzi moved to Stanford University to join the ChEM-H Institute.^[25]

Bertozzi studies the glycobiology of underlying diseases such as cancer, inflammatory disorders such as arthritis, and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis. In particular, Bertozzi has advanced the understanding of cell surface oligosaccharides involved in cell recognition and inter-cellular communication.  Bertozzi has applied the techniques of bioorthogonal chemistry to study glycocalyx, the sugars that surround the cell membrane. Her discoveries have advanced the field of biotherapeutics.^[26] Her lab has also developed tools for research. One such development is creating chemical tools for studying glycans in living systems.^[6] Her lab's development of nanotechnologies which probe biological systems lead to the development of a fast point-of-care tuberculosis test in 2018.^[27][28] In 2017, due to her lab's discovery of linking the sugars on the surface of cancer cells and their ability to avoid the immune system defenses, she was invited to speak at Stanford's TED talk,^[29] giving a talk entitled "What the sugar coating on your cells is trying to tell you".