Presentation Speech by Professor Björn Roos of the , December 10, 1998. Translation of the Swedish text. Professor Björn Roos delivering the Presentation Speech for the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the Stockholm Concert Hall. Photo: Hans Mehlin, Nobelprize.org   Your Majesties, Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen, Man is fantastic. Through his studies…

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008 In the 1960s, when the Japanese scientist Osamu Shimomura began to study the bioluminescent jellyfish Aequorea victoria, he had no idea what a scientific revolution it would lead to. Thirty years later, Martin Chalfie used the jellyfish’s green fluorescent protein to help him study life’s smallest building block, the…

  The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2003           Peter Agre Peter Agre is Professor of Biological Chemistry and Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA.   Water channels: The cell leaks like a sieve     How does water actually pass through the cell membrane? The…

Another important development during the 1960s and the 1970s were new magnet designs, based on superconducting materials. They gave higher and more stable magnetic fields leading to spectra with much better sensitivity and resolution. More complex systems could be studied. In order to move to very complicated molecules, however, the next breakthrough was necessary. Inspired…

I was born in 1926 to Lazar and Bella (née Silin) Klug in Zelvas, Lithuania, but remember nothing of the place, because I was brought to South Africa as a child of two and grew up there. My father was trained as a saddler, but in fact as a young man worked in his father’s…

I was born on April 26th, 1932 at 65 St. Heliers Road, South Shore, Blackpool, England in the house of my maternal grandmother, Mary Martha Armstead, having been delivered by the District Nurse, Ms. Parkinson, a lady who I can remember from my infant and juvenile days in her uniform and navy blue raincoat on…

Edwin Mattison McMillan was born on 18th September, 1907, at Redondo Beach, California. He is the son of Dr. Edwin Harbaugh McMillan, a physician, and his wife, Anne Marie McMillan, née Mattison, who both came from the State of Maryland and were both of English and Scottish descent. The boy spent his early years in…

Bruce Merrifield was born in Fort Worth, Texas, July 15, 1921, the only son of George E. and Lorene (Lucas) Merrifield. In the spring of 1923 they drove across the southwest desert to settle in California where they lived in several cities throughout the state. He attended nine grade schools and two high schools before…

Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1993 The Polymerase Chain Reaction In 1944 , stimulated intellectually by , published a little book called What is Life? It was an inspiration to the first of the molecular biologists, and has been, along with Delbrück himself, credited for directing the research during the next decade that solved the mystery…

  Martin Chalfie at a press conference at University of Columbia, 8 October 2008. Copyright © University of Columbia 2008 Photo: Eileen Barroso Martin Chalfie at a press conference at University of Columbia, 8 October 2008. Copyright © University of Columbia 2008 Photo: Eileen Barroso Eric Kandel (left), Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine 2000,…