The three science-related Nobel science prizes have been awarded, and it seems like as good as time as any to look at what humanity can accomplish with effort and a bit of luck along the way.
The easiest to describe, though possibly the most controversial, are the prizes for medicine. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc A. Montagnier shared half this year’s medicine prize for the discovery of the infectious agent responsible for AIDS, HIV. That such a discovery is worthy of a Nobel is clear; however, whether the two French virologists deserve the credit alone is hotly debated. As the NYT explains, an American scientist, Robert Gallo, also claimed the discovery, a dispute that simmered for years in the 1980s. The other medicine prize went to Harald zur Hausen, a German doctor who discovered a connection between the human papilloma virus, and cervical cancers – the work that led to vaccines like Gardasil against the virus, and thus hopefully saving many thousands of women from cancer.
The chemistry prize was for a single strain of research; a technique which has apparently become ubiquitous in modern biology. Osamu Shimomura discovered green fluorescent protein in a jellyfish species. Martin Chalfe, based on earlier work by Doug Prasher, engineered some bacteria to produce the protein, demonstrating that the protein could be used as a biological marker to track where an organism, or particular gene, is being activated (as I understand it). Roger Tsien took this further, engineering a variety of organisms to produce a huge collection of different colour markers. Apparently, the method lets scientists view a whole bunch of cell activities, in live cells, which previously were inaccessible to them.
Understanding the significance of the third prize is a challenge for the non-physicist, but apparently Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayshi, and Toshihide Maskawa were responsible for a major development in particle physics, which predicted the existence of a whole menagerie of subatomic particles and was a major contributor to the development of the Standard Model of particle physics (the one that the Large Hadron Collider was built to test). If any of our physicist readers could perhaps explain what they did in a bit more detail, it’d be appreciated!
Particularly in the case of the chemistry prize, it’s a textbook example of why basic research is important, even if they payoff is not immediate. A biologist reports an interesting protein in an obscure species. A couple of decades later, somebody else figures out that they can make cells produce it on command. Then somebody else again figures out how to use that to produce custom “markers” to track biological processes, and, voila, we get a whole new way to investigate how cells do their thing.
One wonders what potentially world-changing discoveries are currently mouldering away in journals (or, these days, sitting in on-line archives), waiting for the right person to spot them and make use of their potential.
There are echoes of the discovery of penicillin in the Chemistry Prize.
It’s a shame that Bob Gallo wasn’t included in the Nobel. Both Gallo’s group and l’Institut Pasteur were instrumental in the discovery of HIV (in fact “HIV” is a compromise descriptor between Pasteur’s LAV and Gallo’s HLTV-III descriptors.)
Montagnier published his findings first and the French also registered their patent for the HIV test some months before Gallo but there’s no doubt that the work of each group influenced the other and the long and acrimonious dispute about who “discovered” HIV took forever to resolve.
One of the hallmarks of the HIV response has been the collaborative nature of the international research that has advanced the knowledge frontier at an unprecedented rate. It’s perhaps a pity that the Nobel award didn’t reflect it.
Gee, the Japs have sure cleaned up this year.
Which is fine, just as long as they don’t forget who won the war.
Incidentally, Catalyst tonight showed the technique from the chemistry prize in action.
A team of scientists took a gene from the thylacine (Tasmanian tiger), reconstructing it, and inserting it into a mouse. But to show that it was working, they also tacked on the bit that produces the GFP. When the thylacine gene activated in the mouse embryo, it started to glow flouro green.
So who one economics this year? One of Friedman’s or one of Stigliz’s? It is a science: economics. The only science where the hand these prizes out to people for saying the exact opposite thing.
Economics a science? Please. Show me any other science which relies on a set of assumptions that only work in a very limited and constrained situation and have no relation to the real world.
Oh, wait… never mind.
Economics student to Prof during reading time before exam commences: “I think there’s an error here. All the questions are identical to last year’s questions!!” Prof, “No need to be concerned, young lady. The answers are all different this year.”
The economics prize isn’t awarded by the Nobel comittee, Adrien. I think it’s the Bank of Sweden or something.
Anyway, it’s not, strictly, a Nobel prize, nor is economics a science. (Think verifiable results, theory confirmed by observation, lack of ideology, etc.)
That fluro protein thing is good for Ted Steele. ( Sear Wikipedia )
Helps confirm his theories of reverse transcriptase neo-Lamarkian evolution.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie.
David @8, or a Swiss gnome.
David @ 8, Jane @ 10:
It’s officially the “Swedish State Bank Prize for Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”, and is not part of the original Nobel bequest.
It’s a desperate attempt by a bank to gain scientific credibility for economics, and is a perpetual source of embarrassment to scientific Swedes.
“Helps confirm his theories of reverse transcriptase neo-Lamarkian evolution.”
Oh good, I remember seeing Steele interviewed way back when. We may have need of a little accelerated evolution soon (she intoned spectrally). Now if only Prof Pettigrew could get his macrobats as primates theory over the line I could die happy.
confirm his theories of reverse transcriptase neo-Lamarkian evolution
.
Oh good. I’ve been losing sleep staying up all night worrying about that one.
Thanks for the exact details, Andyc. I knew it was dodgy, but couldn’t remember the specifics.
The only times its been halfway sensible is when they’ve given it to mathematicians for advances in game theory.