Bertozzi was inducted as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, recognizing her prolific patent portfolio and translational research impact.
On December 10, 2013, Carolyn Bertozzi was formally inducted as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), an honor bestowed upon academic inventors who have demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation while producing technologies that have had a tangible impact on society. The announcement was reported by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where Bertozzi held a joint appointment at the time.
NAI Fellowship is considered one of the highest professional distinctions awarded to academic inventors, recognizing individuals who hold patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and whose innovations have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society. By 2013, Bertozzi had already accumulated a substantial patent portfolio stemming from her bioorthogonal chemistry research, including key patents filed and issued throughout the 2000s.
This induction reflected the growing recognition of Bertozzi not merely as an academic scientist producing published research, but as a translational inventor whose discoveries were being actively developed into practical applications, including diagnostic tools and platforms for drug development through companies she co-founded.
Her NAI Fellowship in 2013 presaged her later induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2017, further cementing her reputation as one of the foremost inventor-scientists of her era, culminating in her Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022.