The Nobel Prize

2021-02-15 18:00:07 ​​2020 Medicine Laureate Harvey Alter’s methodical investigations had defined a new, distinct form of chronic viral hepatitis, illness that became known as “non-A, non-B” hepatitis. The next step was to identify the novel virus.

All the traditional techniques for virus hunting were put to use but, in spite of this, the virus eluded isolation for over a decade. 2020 Medicine Laureate Michael Houghton (pictured), working for the pharmaceutical firm Chiron, undertook the arduous work needed to isolate the genetic sequence of the virus. Houghton and his co-workers created a collection of DNA fragments from nucleic acids found in the blood of an infected chimpanzee. The majority of these fragments came from the genome of the chimpanzee itself, but the researchers predicted that some would be derived from the unknown virus. On the assumption that antibodies against the virus would be present in blood taken from hepatitis patients, the investigators used patient sera to identify cloned viral DNA fragments encoding viral proteins. Following a comprehensive search, one positive clone was found. Further work showed that this clone was derived from a novel RNA virus belonging to the Flavivirus family and it was named Hepatitis C virus. The presence of antibodies in chronic hepatitis patients strongly implicated this virus as the missing agent.
Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charlie Rice shared the 2020 Medicine Prize "for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus". Open / Comment

2021-02-15 08:00:10 ​​"I have always believed that human civilization is the fruit of the effort of both women and men. So, when women are treated unjustly and are deprived of their natural right in this process, all social deficiencies and cultural illnesses will be unfolded, and in the end the whole community, men and women, will suffer. The solution to women’s issues can only be achieved in a free and democratic society in which human energy is liberated, the energy of both women and men together. Our civilization is called human civilization and is not attributed only to men or women."

Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman was awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her work for peace and women's rights. Open / Comment

2021-02-14 18:00:13 ​​"The most important qualities of being a teacher I think surely is the enthusiasm for what you are trying to teach. And perhaps it's equally important - you should pay attention to the student."

Jim Peebles, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2019, on teaching. Open / Comment

2021-02-14 08:00:25 ​​”Today, we are truly a global family. What happens in one part of the world may affect us all.”

- 15-year-old Lhamo Dondrub was officially named the 14th Dalai Lama on November 17 in 1950. He was awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his consistent resistance to the use of violence in his people's struggle to regain their liberty. Open / Comment

2021-02-13 18:00:04 ​​Toshihide Maskawa first began using this slide rule as a high school student. At the age of 17, he used it just after the launch of the first ever satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, to calculate the trajectories of satellites and rockets.

Maskawa later delved deeper into the mathematics of quantum physics. In 1973, he obtained his first programmable calculator and his slide rule was allowed to retire. His interest in physics, however, endured and he was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."
His old slide rule now lives at the @NobelPrizeMuseum. Open / Comment

2021-02-13 08:00:11 ​​Even as a child growing up in Hawaii, Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna had a strong urge to know things. One day, her father placed the book 'The Double Helix' on her bed. This detective-style story about how the structure of the DNA molecule was solved was like nothing she had read in her school textbooks. She was captivated by the scientific process and realised that science is more than just facts.

However, when she started to solve scientific mysteries, her attention was not on DNA, but on its molecular sibling: RNA. This would eventually lead her to the discovery of a tool that can be used to change the DNA of organisms with extremely high precision and, last year, to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Credit: Photo by UC Berkeley/Keegan Houser Open / Comment

2021-02-12 18:00:20 ​​Today's quote from Physics Laureate Albert Einstein.

Einstein was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Open / Comment

2021-02-12 08:00:31 ​​The discovery of insulin is one of the biggest breakthroughs in medicine - and one of the most debated Nobel Prizes.

It is January, 1922, Toronto, Canada. 14-year-old Leonard Thompson is the first person with diabetes to receive insulin. The test is a success: Leonard, who before the insulin shots was near death, rapidly regains his strength and appetite.
The news of the successful test treatment rapidly spread, and in 1923, Frederick Banting and John Macleod share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of insulin.
However, Banting was furious with the choice of recipients. He felt that that the prize should have been shared between him and his assistant – medical student Charles Best – not between him and the senior diabetes researcher Macleod.
To credit Best, Banting shared his cash award with him. Macleod, in turn, shared his cash award with biochemist Bertram Collip who had joined the team during the testing phase. Open / Comment

2021-02-11 18:00:05 Open / Comment

2021-02-11 18:00:04 ​​Carbon is an element that can assume a number of different forms. In nature, for example, it can be found as graphite or diamonds. In 1985, Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley discovered a brand new form - the fullerene.

Curl, Kroto and Smalley irradiated a surface of graphite with laser pulses so that carbon gas was formed. When the gas condensed, previously unknown structures with 60 and 70 carbon atoms were formed. The most common structure had 60 carbon atoms arranged in a sphere with five and six edges. The structures were called fullerenes in honour of architect Buckminster Fuller, who worked with this geometric shape. The paper 'C60: buckminsterfullerene' was published in Nature on 14 November 1985.

Curl, Kroto and Smalley shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for their discovery of fullerenes." Open / Comment