Nobel Prize 2024

In the cold autumn night of October 1833, a boy was born to Immanuel Nobel and Karolina Andriette in Stockholm, Sweden. He was one of the eight children to his parents among which he and only 3 other brothers survived till adulthood.

As the boy grew, he developed interest in chemistry and moved to Paris to study same. The boy, now grown as a man excelled in the field and soon filled his first patent for a gas meter.

Later this man joined his father’s factory and helped develop new forms of explosives such as dynamite, gelignite while experimenting with compounds such as nitroglycerine.

In 1888, the mans’ brother died in France where the press wrongly published obituary for this man, stating that “The merchant of death is dead”

This incident changed the man’s perspective for good and he decided to set up an institution out of his fortune that would annually reward people whose work benefit humanity in general.

The name of that trust is “The Nobel Foundation” and that man is known as “Alfred Bernhard Nobel” a chemist, engineer and an industrialist who is famous for inventing dynamite and Nobel prize.

Nobel Prize in Science for the year 2024, Mufawad.com

The Nobel Foundation

As said, Alfred Nobel envisaged the formation of Nobel Foundation. The final authority for carrying out his wishes under his will is that Nobel Foundation, a private organization founded in 1900 post Alfred Nobels death. The major goal of the Nobel Foundation is to manage Alfred Nobel's wealth in such a way that guarantees the Nobel Prize's long-term financial stability and the organizations that will award the prize and will have complete independence in their decision-making process.

The Prize

Nobel Prizes are awarded to outstanding scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who have made significant contributions to the fields of science, technology, and medicine. It consists of a gold medal, a diploma with a citation, and a sum of money, which depends on the income of the Nobel Foundation. This year (2023) the award money was raised to 11 million Kronor due to falling value of the swidish currency.

The Nobel Prize insignia (medal) is made of 24 karat gold plated with green gold. It is about 65 millimetres in diameter and weigh about 175 grams. The medals are awarded to the laureates at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

The prize can be given to one person, divided equally between two persons, or shared by three persons. Sometimes, a prize is withheld until the following year, and if not awarded, it is paid back into the funds.

Prizes can be declined or not accepted before a set date, with reasons for nonacceptance often being external pressure. For example, in 1937, Adolf Hitler forbade Germans from accepting Nobel Prizes due to his infuriation over the 1935 Peace Prize award to anti-Nazi journalist Carl von Ossietzky. In some cases, the refuser later explained the reason behind the refusal and was granted the Nobel gold medal and diploma, but not the money, which reverts to the funds after a certain period of time.

The prizes are open to all, regardless of nationality, race, creed, or ideology. They can be awarded more than once to the same recipient. The ceremonial presentations of the awards for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and economics take place in Stockholm, while that for peace takes place in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.

The general principles governing awards were laid down by Alfred Nobel in his will, and supplementary rules of interpretation and administration were agreed upon in 1900. These statutory rules have remained unchanged but have been somewhat modified in application. The Nobel Prizes for physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine have generally been the least controversial, while those for literature and peace have been exposed to critical differences.

The Selection Process

The Nobel Prize selection process begins in early autumn of the preceding year. Over 6,000 individuals are invited to propose or nominate candidates for the prizes, with the number of nominees usually ranging from 100 to about 250. The jury that nominates people include Ex-Nobel laureates, members of the prize-awarding institutions, scholars in various fields, and officials from various universities and learned academies.

Nominations must be submitted to the Nobel Committees by January 31 of the award year. By February 1, the six Nobel Committees, one for each prize category which include Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, Economics & Peace, begin working on the nominations received, often consulting outside experts to determine the originality and significance of each nominee's contribution.

The committees submit their recommendations to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and other prize-awarding institutions in September. Prizes are usually only be given to individuals, except the Peace Prize, which may also be conferred upon an institution.

Most importantly, an individual cannot be nominated posthumously, but a winner who dies before receiving the prize may be awarded it posthumously. The awards can also not be appealed, and official support for a candidate has no bearing on the award process, as the prize awarders are independent of the state.

Nobel Prize in Science for the year 2024:

As wrote above, Nobel Prize is given three fields of science which include Physics, Chemistry, Medicine besides in literature and Peace. Many famous scientists about whom we read about in our NCERT text books have been awarded Nobel prize in above fields which include Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Linus Pauling, James Watson, Alexander Fleming and the list goes on.

Besides that, there are total eight Indian or Indian origin scientists who also got Nobel prize and three of them got Nobel prize in the domain of science which include C.V Raman, Har Gobind Khurana, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

Nobel Prize in Physics 2024

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to:

John J. Hopfield, born 1933 in Chicago, IL, USA. PhD 1958 from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Professor at Princeton University, NJ, USA.

Geoffrey E. Hinton, born 1947 in London, UK. PhD 1978 from The University of Edinburgh, UK. Professor at University of Toronto, Canada.

For what the official website says, “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”

John Hopfield (L), Geoffrey Hinton (R)

This year’s two Nobel Laureates in Physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that are the foundation of today’s powerful machine learning. John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we often mean machine learning using artificial neural networks. This technology was originally inspired by the structure of the brain. In an artificial neural network, the brain’s neurons are represented by nodes that have different values. These nodes influence each other through con­nections that can be likened to synapses and which can be made stronger or weaker. The network is trained, for example by developing stronger connections between nodes with simultaneously high values. This year’s laureates have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward.

John Hopfield invented a network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns. We can imagine the nodes as pixels. The Hopfield network utilises physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network’s energy falls. The network thus works stepwise to find the saved image that is most like the imperfect one it was fed with.

Geoffrey Hinton used the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine. This can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data. Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained. Hinton has built upon this work, helping initiate the current explosive development of machine learning.

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit. In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties,” says Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 to:

David Baker, born 1962 in Seattle, WA, USA. PhD 1989 from University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Professor at University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA.

Demis Hassabis, born 1976 in London, UK. PhD 2009 from University College London, UK. CEO of Google DeepMind, London, UK.

John M. Jumper, born 1985 in Little Rock, AR, USA. PhD 2017 from Uni­versity of Chicago, IL, USA. Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, London, UK.

For What the official website says, “for protein structure prediction”

Demis Hassabis (L) , John M. Jumper (C), David Baker (R) , 

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024 is about pro­teins, life’s ingenious chemical tools. David Baker has succeeded with the almost impossible feat of building entirely new kinds of proteins. Demis Hassabis and John Jumper have developed an AI model to solve a 50-year-old problem: predicting proteins’ complex structures. These discoveries hold enormous potential.

The diversity of life testifies to proteins’ amazing capacity as chemical tools. They control and drive all the chemi­cal reactions that together are the basis of life. Proteins also function as hormones, signal substances, antibodies and the building blocks of different tissues.

“One of the discoveries being recognised this year concerns the construction of spectacular proteins. The other is about fulfilling a 50-year-old dream: predicting protein structures from their amino acid sequences. Both of these discoveries open up vast possibilities,” says Heiner Linke, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Proteins generally consist of 20 different amino acids, which can be described as life’s building blocks. In 2003, David Baker succeeded in using these blocks to design a new protein that was unlike any other protein. Since then, his research group has produced one imaginative protein creation after another, including proteins that can be used as pharmaceuticals, vaccines, nanomaterials and tiny sensors.

The second discovery concerns the prediction of protein structures. In proteins, amino acids are linked together in long strings that fold up to make a three-dimensional structure, which is decisive for the protein’s function. Since the 1970s, researchers had tried to predict protein structures from amino acid sequences, but this was notoriously difficult. However, four years ago, there was a stunning breakthrough.

In 2020, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper presented an AI model called AlphaFold2. With its help, they have been able to predict the structure of virtually all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified. Since their breakthrough, AlphaFold2 has been used by more than two million people from 190 countries. Among a myriad of scientific applications, researchers can now better understand antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.

Life could not exist without proteins. That we can now predict protein structures and design our own proteins confers the greatest benefit to humankind.

Nobel Prize in Medicine 2024

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to:

Victor Ambros ,born in 1953 in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. He received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, in 1979 where he also did postdoctoral research 1979-1985. He became a Principal Investigator at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA in 1985. He was Professor at Dartmouth Medical School from 1992-2007 and he is now Silverman Professor of Natural Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA.

Gary Ruvkun,  born in Berkeley, California, USA in 1952. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1982. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, 1982-1985. He became a Principal Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 1985, where he is now Professor of Genetics.

For what the official website says, “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation”

Victor Ambros (L) ,  Gary Ruvkun (R)

This year’s Nobel Prize honors two scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated.

The information stored within our chromosomes can be likened to an instruction manual for all cells in our body. Every cell contains the same chromosomes, so every cell contains exactly the same set of genes and exactly the same set of instructions. Yet, different cell types, such as muscle and nerve cells, have very distinct characteristics. How do these differences arise? The answer lies in gene regulation, which allows each cell to select only the relevant instructions. This ensures that only the correct set of genes is active in each cell type.

Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were interested in how different cell types develop. They discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation. Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. It is now known that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs. Their surprising discovery revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.

Essential regulation

This year’s Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then on to the cellular machinery for protein production. There, mRNAs are translated so that proteins are made according to the genetic instructions stored in DNA. Since the mid-20th century, several of the most fundamental scientific discoveries have explained how these processes work.

Our organs and tissues consist of many different cell types, all with identical genetic information stored in their DNA. However, these different cells express unique sets of proteins. How is this possible? The answer lies in the precise regulation of gene activity so that only the correct set of genes is active in each specific cell type. This enables, for example, muscle cells, intestinal cells, and different types of nerve cells to perform their specialized functions. In addition, gene activity must be continually fine-tuned to adapt cellular functions to changing conditions in our bodies and environment. If gene regulation goes awry, it can lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or autoimmunity. Therefore, understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal for many decades.

In the 1960s, it was shown that specialized proteins, known as transcription factors, can bind to specific regions in DNA and control the flow of genetic information by determining which mRNAs are produced. Since then, thousands of transcription factors have been identified, and for a long time it was believed that the main principles of gene regulation had been solved. However, in 1993, this year’s Nobel laureates published unexpected findings describing a new level of gene regulation, which turned out to be highly significant and conserved throughout evolution.

Research on a small worm leads to a big breakthrough

In the late 1980s, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002, alongside Sydney Brenner and John Sulston. In Horvitz’s laboratory, they studied a relatively unassuming 1 mm long roundworm, C. elegans. Despite its small size, C. elegans possesses many specialized cell types such as nerve and muscle cells also found in larger, more complex animals, making it a useful model for investigating how tissues develop and mature in multicellular organisms. Ambros and Ruvkun were interested in genes that control the timing of activation of different genetic programs, ensuring that various cell types develop at the right time. They studied two mutant strains of worms, lin-4 and lin-14, that displayed defects in the timing of activation of genetic programs during development. The laureates wanted to identify the mutated genes and understand their function. Ambros had previously shown that the lin-4 gene appeared to be a negative regulator of the lin-14 gene. However, how the lin-14 activity was blocked was unknown. Ambros and Ruvkun were intrigued by these mutants and their potential relationship and set out to resolve these mysteries.

After his postdoctoral research, Victor Ambros analyzed the lin-4 mutant in his newly established laboratory at Harvard University. Methodical mapping allowed the cloning of the gene and led to an unexpected finding. The lin-4 gene produced an unusually short RNA molecule that lacked a code for protein production. These surprising results suggested that this small RNA from lin-4 was responsible for inhibiting lin-14. How might this work?

Concurrently, Gary Ruvkun investigated the regulation of the lin-14 gene in his newly established laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Unlike how gene regulation was then known to function, Ruvkun showed that it is not the production of mRNA from lin-14 that is inhibited by lin-4. The regulation appeared to occur at a later stage in the process of gene expression, through the shutdown of protein production. Experiments also revealed a segment in lin-14 mRNA that was necessary for its inhibition by lin-4. The two laureates compared their findings, which resulted in a breakthrough discovery. The short lin-4 sequence matched complementary sequences in the critical segment of the lin-14 mRNA. Ambros and Ruvkun performed further experiments showing that the lin-4 microRNA turns off lin-14 by binding to the complementary sequences in its mRNA, blocking the production of lin-14 protein. A new principle of gene regulation, mediated by a previously unknown type of RNA, microRNA, had been discovered! The results were published in 1993 in two articles in the journal Cell.

The published results were initially met with almost deafening silence from the scientific community. Although the results were interesting, the unusual mechanism of gene regulation was considered a peculiarity of C. elegans, likely irrelevant to humans and other more complex animals. That perception changed in 2000 when Ruvkun’s research group published their discovery of another microRNA, encoded by the let-7 gene. Unlike lin-4, the let-7 gene was highly conserved and present throughout the animal kingdom. The article sparked great interest, and over the following years, hundreds of different microRNAs were identified. Today, we know that there are more than a thousand genes for different microRNAs in humans, and that gene regulation by microRNA is universal among multicellular organisms.

In addition to the mapping of new microRNAs, experiments by several research groups elucidated the mechanisms of how microRNAs are produced and delivered to complementary target sequences in regulated mRNAs. The binding of microRNA leads to inhibition of protein synthesis or to mRNA degradation. Intriguingly, a single microRNA can regulate the expression of many different genes, and conversely, a single gene can be regulated by multiple microRNAs, thereby coordinating and fine-tuning entire networks of genes.

Cellular machinery for producing functional microRNAs is also employed to produce other small RNA molecules in both plants and animals, for example as a means of protecting plants against virus infections. Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello, awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006, described RNA interference, where specific mRNA-molecules are inactivated by adding double-stranded RNA to cells.

Tiny RNAs with profound physiological importance

Gene regulation by microRNA, first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun, has been at work for hundreds of millions of years. This mechanism has enabled the evolution of increasingly complex organisms. We know from genetic research that cells and tissues do not develop normally without microRNAs. Abnormal regulation by microRNA can contribute to cancer, and mutations in genes coding for microRNAs have been found in humans, causing conditions such as congenital hearing loss, eye and skeletal disorders. Mutations in one of the proteins required for microRNA production result in the DICER1 syndrome, a rare but severe syndrome linked to cancer in various organs and tissues.

Ambros and Ruvkun’s seminal discovery in the small worm C. elegans was unexpected, and revealed a new dimension to gene regulation, essential for all complex life forms.