Your Questions about the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

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Question: Dear Professor Jörnvall,
It seems most of the prizes are given for work related to bench-work. Does the committee consider prizes for other work in medicine? For example, the use of information technology and its impact to improve health care. In the United States, our costs are incredible and continue to rise. However there seems to be little to alleviate such large-scale problems and technology may be one solution. My opinion is that the Nobel Committee should expand their search and include impact of any and all work that has large-scale impact on health care in general - whether policy, bench-work, or delivery. Is this a direction the Committee would consider?
Thank you for your time.
Anwar Hussain MD, MHA

Answer: Dear Anwar Hussain: Yes, I agree with you that we should consider all areas of Physiology or Medicine, and I think we do just that. Nominations span the entire domain of Physiology or Medicine, and our 50 Nobel Assembly members do, too. What you see as the awarded Nobel Prize, is therefore only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the winning vote each year, but we do consider many fields during the process. True, many of the top discoveries in biosciences today involves bench work, but not all, and the Awards represent these wide fields. For example, as recently as 2005, the Prize Awardees Barry Marshall and Robin Warren had made clinical studies finding the explanation to a disease, and some Awards have been in "distant" fields of Medicine, for example to Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen in 1973 regarding behaviour patterns.

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Question: It seems that the three prize winners all published their papers with groups of people, and that Evans credits Kaufman in particular with a significant part of the work (see his own website, linked from the Nobel website). So my question is, when landmark papers are co-authored, how does the Nobel Prize committee decide which authors get the prize?

Answer: Yes, you are correct, this decision is important. Overall, how we do this is no secret: we essentially do everything we can to find out exactly who did what, and above all who did exactly the discovery that we name. We make written evaluations and call upon both our own and outside expertise to help us in this evaluation. We also match all details and continue until we feel we know the relationships and events. Of course, this process might take time, but this is necessary, and can be one (of several) reasons why an Award is not always given the first year a discovery becomes known. We do not only need to know that the discovery is correct, but also exactly who the one (or two, three) is/are who did it. If we cannot find out (but we try very hard!), it may also be one reason (again of many reasons) why a great discovery does not always get an Award.

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Question: Who were the other contenders for the 2007 Nobel prize in Medicine. Why did the committee select this work for the Nobel Prize? How has the winners work helped the medical community and how does it benefit the common man?
Ramani

Answer: Dear Ramani: To answer your questions in order:
1) All contenders and all decision details are confidential and not disclosed.
2) Why this Prize? Because it was the discovery and Awardees that won the vote among the Assembly members this year.
3) The work has helped two-fold: a) the medical community now has knowledge about much of the function of about half of our genes, and in a few years about most of our genes! b) we have over 500 novel disease models already and can study causes and treatments of diseases we previously had no molecular access to. Combined, these two facts have revolu­tionized present and future medicine.
4) The benefit to the common man is that when he/she gets old, we may have knowledge that can treat and cure his/her disease, prevent or cure conditions that affect people at an older age, like cardio­vascular disease, and to give him/her some more years to live a healthy life.

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Question: Hi Hans,
Just wondered whether we can get tickets to the Award ceremony and dinner since I was a college classmate of one of the winners. Mario Capecchi and I went to Antioch College together. We both graduated in 1961. :-) Once again the Committee made good choices for this year's prizes.
Esther

Answer: Esther: Thanks for your words about good choices. We think so, too! Tickets: That is more difficult, and I wish I had some to give you, but I have not. However, this year, I understand the whole ceremony will be broadcast on TV, and recorded and hosted on Nobelprize.org. I will ask the relevant people for more details on how you can see the coverage of the ceremony. If you do access this coverage, you might see it better and in closer detail on the Internet (or your TV) than if you were present and further distant at some row or table away!

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Question: Based on the people who got the Nobel Prizes for the past several years, it seems that the Nobel Committee is focusing on relatively small problems (one method, one pathway, one mechanism, or even one molecule). With this standard, there are too many people who could meet this level of recognition. I have not seen any true conceptual leap such as those in old days, such the discovery of the double helix of DNA, or genetic codes. Those discoveries truly revolutionize the entire fields and beyond. Does the current situation reflect the lack of visionary thinking or limited progress at those fundamental levels? Thank you for your valuable time.
Alex

Answer: Dear Alex: Good question. I agree with you that it looks to many that some of the previous discoveries, especially in the genetic/molecular field, look super-great because they opened new fields/new insights. But I think it largely is because these Awards have had some time to develop those fields/insights. More recent Awards have not yet had the same time to develop those fields/insights, but the potential is there.

Look for example at the last three years' Prizes: This year's Award to gene modifications in mice using embryonic stem cells has "only" given us access to 500 disease models and half of the mammalian genes, or there about. But in a few years' time it will provide models for most of our diseases with which we can work to get new drugs, and provide insights into all or most mammalian genes. Then all will talk about this Award, like they talk about the double helix of DNA or other facts you refer to!

Also, last year's Award, RNA interference, was unknown in detail until fairly recently before the discovery, and has not even yet been fully exploited for new drugs and insights, but is has potential to be THE discovery. Similarly with the year before: it is already starting to be the change.

When I started in medicine, peptic ulcer disease was a psychosomatic "stress" disease. One treatment was surgery, with all surgical clinics full of operated patients, and people died of bleeding ulcers. Now they do not, thanks to the research by Barry Marshall and Robin Warren that was awarded the Prize in 2005. Surgical clinics are not full of those patients any more, and the disease can be treated with drugs!

In ten years time, these three Awards for 2005-2007 will be treated with the same dignity and lasting breakthrough as perhaps the ones you mention or refer to. Thus, I think, much of your paradox is the lack of passed time for the present Awards. But of course, we could somehow become less visionary, and if so, I hope your question will help us to be observant and to improve!

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Question: Professor Jörnvall,
Why not to divide the Nobel Prizes between men and women equally? That would encourage more women to participate in science and scientific inquiry.

Answer: "Dry" or "formal" answer to your question: The will of Alfred Nobel tells us only two things: to award what we consider the best discovery each year that has conferred the greatest benefit for mankind. And to disregard all other aspects, like country, field, gender and age, so that "only the best" is awarded. This is what we try to do. Hence, we cannot have any other rules, or a 50-50 gender rule like you suggest. Since these discoveries are often made at universities after research, and universities at top research positions often have men (still!), we have to live with the fact that they still make many of the great discoveries. It may (hopefully) change one day, and if so, we will notice!

Your second point: no, in the long run, I do not agree with your conclusion. Instead, I think that in the short run, people (including women) might go for what is popular and awarded, but in the long run, I believe (and hope) science at large will attract those who are genuinely interested and those who are there because of a desire and an inner feeling to do research, not those who look at gender or any other non-scientific emphasis!  

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Question: What makes the Nobel Prize committee choose one achievement over another even if both are equally exceptional?

Answer: The final choice is the result of the voting process. Thus, there is no choice at the end, just a result!

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Question: The first transgenic mice was made by Richard Palmiter and Ralph Brinster in 1982. The first knockout mouse by Martin Evans, Oliver Smithies and Mario Capecchi was created later. Why where not the pioneres of trangenic animals not included in the Prize?

Answer: There is only one Prize each year. Hence, there is simply not space for all big discoveries to get an Award. You can always ask why a discovery receives an Award: we describe why in the quotations that are given, and we produce posters, information and answer questions on that discovery each year. But you can never ask why a discovery did not get an Award. We do not give motivations for all those many and great discoveries that do not get an Award.

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Interview with Professor Göran K. Hansson after the announcement of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

Articles about the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine

Search in the 1901-1951 Nomination Database!