Let us play with the thought that we are members of the Nobel Committee. Our task is to award the most important international awards and we have the whole world watching us, expectantly. This week scientists everywhere are laying sleepless, hoping that they will receive ”the call”.
On one hand, we have Alfred Nobel’s final will guide to us in our decisions. It states that the Prizes should go “…to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
On the other hand, we have to consider the bigger perspective, including the practical advantages of discoveries, how they have panned out and what effects they may have down the road. If we award the Prize to a very recent discovery, it can result in disaster. Like that time in 1949 when we gave Egas Moniz the prize in medicine for lobotomy. If we make another one of those blunders, the court of public opinion will judge us harshly.
That’s one of the reasons that some of the Nobel Prize research and discoveries are as old as 30 and 40 years. In a way, old discoveries may seem dull and it is more exciting if we can reward more current affairs. All the better, if our laureates’ accomplishments have shown practical advantages for mankind. Sure, we can go ahead and award the Prize for general research and scientific discoveries that explains the anatomy and universe. But not every year. On occasion, we have to reward inventions that have been of actual use for mankind, as is literally spelled out in the will.
Then of course, we end up confronting the conundrum of looking like we are favoring a corporation – for example, in the pharmaceutical or electronics industry. This, in turn, can lead to critical media coverage, accusing us of bias and taking bribes.
Another important aspect in our work is to figure out who actually made the very first discovery. It may not necessarily be the most well-known name in that particular field. It may actually belong to a fairly anonymous person in some far-away country.
In this area, we consider ourselves the world’s leading experts, but we receive criticism almost every year by those who ended up Prize runner-ups.
Medicine: Stem cells – a combination of old and new as well basic research and patient benefit.
At the top of our list is Shinya Yamanaka from Japan. Just four years ago, he discovered a method to produce stem cells from old ordinary body cells, such as those from the skin. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells, commonly abbreviated as IPS, and the prospects are quite breathtaking. It brings forth the dream that any little cell from my own body can become new teeth, knees, cure diabetes, MS and Parkinson’s disease.
But Shinya Yamanaka will likely have to share that Prize with two Canadians named Ernest McCullogh and James Till. Almost 40 years ago, they discovered the very first type of stem cells, known as blood stem cells or hematopoietic stem cells. For many years now, these cells have been successfully used to cure leukemia and in recent years a variety of other diseases. It is also likely that Shinya Yamanaka may end up sharing the Prize with the person he considers as his scientific predecessor: British scientist John Gurdon, who succeeded in cloning frogs in the early 1960s.
Though they still feel too controversial, mirror neurons are another possibility, and one that should not be ignored. Mirror neurons are the type of brain cells that signal when we see others do things – often regarded as the basis of compassion. The obvious candidate here is Italian Giacomo Rizzolatti, possibly in combination with Riita Hari of Finland.
We also have the nuclear hormone receptors, which are located at the receiver inside the cells and capture vitamins and other important molecules. Pierre Chambon, Ronald Evans, and Elwood Jensen are thefront-runners here. In previous years, power struggles within the Karolinska Institute have made such a Prize unlikely to be awarded, but conditions have changed and the nuclear hormone receptors are climbing the ladder of possible winners.
Physics: It was unfortunate that Wolf Price of Israel beat us, but now the time has come for entanglement as a key player. This discovery is about an effect of quantum mechanics in which particles that once were part of the same system continue to have telepathic contact with each other, even if they are located many kilometers apart. Albert Einstein was a doubter and viewed entanglement far-fetched at best. But at the beginning of the 1980s, the Frenchman Alain Aspect proved that particles actually can be entangled. Today this scientific discipline is hotter than ever. Among other things, there is hope to discover faster-than-light communication. Our guess is that Aspect gets to share the Prize with the Austrian Anton Zeilinger and the American John Clauser.
One challenger is the graphene, the new super material of carbon that is completely two-dimensional. It’s a recent discovery and maybe it’s a little early for this 6-year-old to step up on the Nobel Prize stage, but the electronics industry has gigantic hopes and expectations for the graphene. Russian-born Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, both active in England, may very well receive an invitation to Stockholm this year.
Chemistry: Maybe the spectra of spectroscopy – a close up as well as all the way to outer space? William Moerner has developed a spectrometer that can discern individual molecules of elements. William Klemperer has developed methods to establish what molecules are present in the dust clouds between the stars. Maybe a combination of those two, and maybe Richard Zare and/or Allen Bard will be in on it.
Because Gunnar von Heijne has left his position as a chairman of the Chemistry Committee, perhaps his subject, protein folding, can be awarded. Artur Horwich and John Ellis have worked with what we call chaperones – small hats that attach themselves on the proteins and fold them.
Lastly, it would be fun to see controversial Craig Venter finally get his Prize. That would upset many. It is hard to tell whether his frequent trips to Stockholm have been an advantage or disadvantage for his chances at a Nobel Prize. The so-called shotgun sequencing that he has developed has, after all, been crucial to the possibility of reading DNA as quickly as we are able to today. But if Craig Venter gets the prize, it should be shared with the mathematician Eugene Myers, who paved the way for Venter’s success by doing much of the legwork.