I like how they always present the work in a readable way for laymen. Look forward to the various awards each year just because it's interesting to dive into all the different stuff. The talks are also often worth a watch.
I appreciate that some Nobel selections, like this one, are for core biological discoveries rather than hot topics.
How our bodies perceive / interface with the world is fundamental to our human experience: Pain, temperature, positioning. And that these perceptions can be significantly modulated by how our bodies process them (eg pain).
Not only is their actual body of work impressive, as it cuts across so many methodologies to get a glimpse at “how things work,” their discoveries opened up fields for others.
Hard disagree. These are for lack of better word standard discoveries that the high intensity labs discover with pretty much standard methodologies and no Innovations worthy of a Nobel. Of course we have receptors for heat and touch, and of course someone eventually found them. What’s original in that process? This is not RNAi, or CRISPR, or GFP. One of the more underwhelming Nobels in recent times. Somehow worse than superresolution.
If you throw a vase in the air it will fall down and shatter: like, duh it’s gravity. But how many years to figure the equations? To tie the how/why to the obvious?
Don’t trivialize their work because your work didn’t receive a Nobel. K thanks.
These discoveries could be game changers for prosthetics, brain computer interfaces, augmented reality, etc.
The criteria for winning the prize depend more on the outcome of the research (importance) than its process (originality):
"The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- – -/ one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine …” (Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)".
I think it is very likely that it will be rewarded, just not this year. Some time need to pass, and even though the discovery should be rewarded, it also needs to be figured out who to reward it to. Probably there are more than 3 contenders.
I would bet money that there is one awarded in the next 10-15 years.
Nobel prizes are notorious for not being reactionary, and waiting for the full effects of the work to be realized - i.e. GFP tagging awarded the nobel prize 16 years after it was first used.
mRNA vaccination technology is just getting started, the impact of which will likely be on the level of penicillin.
That's a chemistry prize and most likely will happen in the next 2-3 days. Typically technologies are rewarded in chemistry whereas basic science (physiology) is rewarded in medicine.
I agree, but I guess the challenge here is who are the 3 scientists to credit? Katalin Karikó is certainly one of them, but who are the other two? Weissman? Ugur Sahin? Özlem Türeci? Ingmar Hoerr? Noubar Afeyan? And then there is the weirdo guy that calls himself "mrna vaccine inventor"?
I guess the committee needs another 1-2 years time to decide on that, with the benefit of hindsight.
If you look at the past awards, the Nobel committee prefers awarding those who published the earliest, fundamental results. Even if it was published in some obscure non-English language journal (see the artemisinin prize, for example).
They've given it to organizations before (Doctors Without Borders won in 1999). Give it to Pfizer, Moderna and Oxford University then. Or "front line COVID-workers" or something. Exactly who gets it is not the main point, the main point is rewarding this incredible achievement in medicine (both the science of it, but also the work in testing, manufacturing and delivering it to patients).
It's not a popularity content. Nobel prizes are typically not given until several years after the work is complete and enough time has passed to fully appreciate the significance of it.
On the one side, you are correct and it's only last year / this year that mRNA vaccines have seen widespread adoption.
On the other, mRNA research goes back to the 80's, and mRNA vaccine research goes back twenty years; these facts are often overlooked by the "it was developed too fast" crowds.
That said,
> It's not a popularity content.
And yet, they gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize the year he was elected, without any merit or achievements to back it up. That decision was politically motivated. Same with giving it to Al Gore for his climate activism. They even tried to nominate Hitler in 1939, albeit in jest.
That's what I was hoping to see, an award to Karikó and Weissman for their mRNA research. I'm sure they'll get the Nobel within the next few years, but it would have been appropriate to award it now. The Nobel Committee doesn't rush the prizes, and they don't generally go to new research, but mRNA would be a very justified exception. We're currently in the worst pandemic in a century, and over the last ten months we've seen how the mRNA vaccines provide amazingly high protection against hospitalization and death.
I can only assume they are waiting until next year to be sure how the vaccine picture shakes out. MRNA vaccines are clearly safe and effective, and have saved countless lives, but with the dopey politics in Sweden about Covid, I am not really that surprised.
- Sweden's handling of Covid has not been particularly influenced by politics, it's been run by the government-appointed experts (that were appointed before Covid broke out), so the "dopey politics" referred to have never really been politically motivated.
I don't think there's any reason for connecting Sweden's Covid response with who got the Nobel prize in Medicine this year.
Before it gets hijacked by zealots on both side in saving or depopulating the planet.
It was a quite conservative pick given the complexities and interwovenness of discoveries in a given field: Citation Index and some fundamental property (TRPV --> Temperature/Heat/Pain & PIEZO--> Touch/Proprioception), it was relatively easy to pinpoint those two (no pun intended).
The mRNA technology would not be so clear cut in terms of persons involved since it had to go through many hurdles. There are two illustrative roadmaps [1][2] (And yes, Malone et al. was a early contributor as well (1989)[3])
Are there useful possibilities opened up by increased understanding of how the touch receptors work? I can imagine that our ability to manipulate those more effectively could have a lot of useful applications.
Readit News
How our bodies perceive / interface with the world is fundamental to our human experience: Pain, temperature, positioning. And that these perceptions can be significantly modulated by how our bodies process them (eg pain).
Not only is their actual body of work impressive, as it cuts across so many methodologies to get a glimpse at “how things work,” their discoveries opened up fields for others.
If you throw a vase in the air it will fall down and shatter: like, duh it’s gravity. But how many years to figure the equations? To tie the how/why to the obvious?
Don’t trivialize their work because your work didn’t receive a Nobel. K thanks.
These discoveries could be game changers for prosthetics, brain computer interfaces, augmented reality, etc.
"The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- – -/ one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine …” (Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)".
Nobel prizes are notorious for not being reactionary, and waiting for the full effects of the work to be realized - i.e. GFP tagging awarded the nobel prize 16 years after it was first used.
mRNA vaccination technology is just getting started, the impact of which will likely be on the level of penicillin.
I guess the committee needs another 1-2 years time to decide on that, with the benefit of hindsight.
I'd say it's a bit early for mRNA vaccines.
"to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." (https://www.nobelprize.org/alfred-nobel/full-text-of-alfred-...)
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On the other, mRNA research goes back to the 80's, and mRNA vaccine research goes back twenty years; these facts are often overlooked by the "it was developed too fast" crowds.
That said,
> It's not a popularity content.
And yet, they gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize the year he was elected, without any merit or achievements to back it up. That decision was politically motivated. Same with giving it to Al Gore for his climate activism. They even tried to nominate Hitler in 1939, albeit in jest.
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Dead Comment
- the Nobel prize in medicine is not handed out by the Swedish government, so any dopey politics would not influence the Nobel prize. Rather, it is handed out by Karolinska Institutet (https://www.nobelprize.org/about/the-nobel-assembly-at-karol...)
- Sweden's handling of Covid has not been particularly influenced by politics, it's been run by the government-appointed experts (that were appointed before Covid broke out), so the "dopey politics" referred to have never really been politically motivated.
I don't think there's any reason for connecting Sweden's Covid response with who got the Nobel prize in Medicine this year.
Deleted Comment
The mRNA technology would not be so clear cut in terms of persons involved since it had to go through many hurdles. There are two illustrative roadmaps [1][2] (And yes, Malone et al. was a early contributor as well (1989)[3])
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7554980/bin/ijm... [2]https://media.springernature.com/full/springer-static/image/... [3]https://www.pnas.org/content/86/16/6077
As can be seen there the delay is often measured in decades. For medicine many awards around 20 years or more after discovery.