Have you ever heard of James E. Rothman? How about Randy W. Shekman? My guess is no – and I hadn’t heard of them either, until one very special day in October 2013. October 9 marked the beginning of the 2013 “Nobel Season”. On this day, the Nobel Prizes were announced for the categories of Medicine/Physiology, Physics, and Chemistry. The Nobel Prizes in Literature and Economics and the Nobel Peace Prize were announced later in the week.
Shekman and Rothman, along with Dr. Thomas C. Südhof, were presented with the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their contributions to our understanding of how substances are moved around the inside of a cell. It is now known that small vesicles, or bubbles, carry their contents around the cell before delivering them to the correct area in the cell. This new understanding of the process has implications for cures to diabetes, neurological diseases, and immunological disorders.
Peter Higgs and Francois Englert were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their publication of the Higgs theory after the particle’s existence was proved last year in a Geneva laboratory. Interestingly, both men had separately postulated the Higgs particle’s existence in 1964, but were not awarded the Nobel Prize until the particle’s existence was proven. This theory greatly expands our understanding of how subatomic particles have mass.
Three scientists that are based right here in the United States were awarded with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt, and Arieh Warshel. They created computer models for complex chemical reactions. These models can help with creating new drugs in the future.
Canadian author Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for her contemporary-style short stories. Her stories masterfully capture the essence of everyday life. (Visit the MHS Library for a copy of her short story “Meneseteung”!)
The famous Nobel Peace Prize was given to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, abbreviated as OPCW. This organization was honored with this award for its comprehensive work to eliminate chemical weapons. Although the use of chemical weapons was prohibited during the Geneva Convention in 1925, the law has been broken numerous times, most recently in Syria. The OPCW has worked since 1997 to make sure countries follow the laws of the convention and eliminate their stores of chemical weapons. As humans’ understanding of chemical weapons and how to create them expands, the organization’s work becomes ever more important.
The last prize to be awarded was the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Although the prize is not one of the original Nobel Prizes, it was established by the central bank in Sweden, Sveriges Riksbank in memory of Alfred Nobel, and has been awarded since 1969. This year’s economic prize was awarded to three scientists in the United States, Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert Shiller, for their work on predicting stock prices. Most notably, the men found a way to predict the general fluctuation of prices over a long period of time.
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/year/?year=2013
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2013/press.html