The Nobel Prize

Fearlessness. Hear chemistry laureate Frances Arnold share what she looks for in new recruits in her laboratory. Watch the full interview with Arnold: https://bit.ly/3DWgPbU

Literature laureate Doris Lessing believed access to books was of utmost importance in order to become a good writer: "I was brought up in what was virtually a mud hut, thatched. This kind of house has been built always, everywhere there are reeds or grass, suitable mud, poles for walls. Saxon England for example. The one I was brought up in had four rooms, one beside another, and it was full of books. Not only did my parents take books from England to Africa, but my mother ordered books by post from England for her children. Books arrived in great brown paper parcels, and they were the joy of my young life. A mud hut, but full of books. Even today I get letters from people living in a village that might not have electricity or running water, just like our family in our elongated mud hut. “I shall be a writer too,” they say, “because I’ve the same kind of house you lived in.” But here is the difficulty, no? Writing, writers, do not come out of houses without books." Read the rest of her Nobel Prize lecture in which Lessing speaks about the importance of books and reading: https://bit.ly/2UquTkB

George Hitchings and Gertrude Elion's research revolutionised both the development of new pharmaceuticals and the field of medicine. Together Hitchings and Elion developed a new way to develop drugs – discarding the traditional trial-and-error approach in favour of a rational, scientific approach. One of the first drugs produced by the pair was for leukaemia and helped many children with the disease to survive. Other drugs they created have been used to fight malaria, infections and help with organ transplantations. Learn more: https://bit.ly/2J0nbag

"You learn the most from things you enjoy doing so much that you don’t even notice time passing. I am often so engrossed in my work that I forget to eat lunch." - Albert Einstein's wise advice to his son Albert on 4 November 1915. Einstein passed away on this day 18 April 1955, aged 76. Read the full letter: https://bit.ly/4a1YFju

“It always amuses me that the biggest praise for my work comes for the imagination, while the truth is that there’s not a single line in all my work that does not have a basis in reality.” - Gabriel García Márquez, pioneer of magical realism, via The Paris Review García Márquez popularised the genre of magical realism, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination. ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ (‘Cien Años de Soledad’) which epitomises the genre, tells the tale of the fictional isolated Colombian village of Macondo and the family who founded it, the Buendías. The imaginary place is depicted on an epic level, from its mythic foundation to its lost historical consciousness and eventual disappearance. Since the end of the 1940s García Márquez’s novels and short stories have led us into this peculiar place where the miraculous and the real converge, drawing upon the author’s own extravagant flight of fantasy, traditional folk tales and historical facts. García Márquez’s influences include his grandmother who told him about supernatural things in a natural way, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner and Franz Kafka. He told ‘The Paris Review’ that the first line of Kafka’s surreal masterpiece, ‘The Metamorphosis’, spurred him to write. This influence is ever present throughout ‘Cien Años de Soledad’ where anything can happen! In turn, García Márquez’s works, which include ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’, have inspired many acclaimed authors, including fellow literature laureate and friend Toni Morrison. García Márquez was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature. Read his ceremony speech: https://bit.ly/4lvYGD8

"You want a leader who is also a servant." What makes a good leader? Peace laureate Desmond Tutu told us what qualities he feels are most important in this interview from 2007.

“I felt really alone and isolated at school. This “outsider” feeling drove me to take risks and prove doubters wrong, and later influenced my choices as a scientist. In my isolation, I sought solace in books that spurred me to learn more about the world around me and how I fit in.” - chemistry laureate Jennifer Doudna on her childhood. As well as making friends, she enjoyed walking, riding her bike and exploring lava-flow caves in Hawaii where she grew up. “With its mix of volcanoes, forests and beaches, the “Big Island” of Hawaii provided a rich palette of biological diversity that inspired my first questions as to how so much diversity came to be,” she says. Having become fascinated by DNA and RNA, in 2012, Doudna joined forces with Emmanuelle Charpentier to develop a method for high-precision genome editing. They used the immune system of a bacterium, which disables viruses by cutting their DNA up with a type of genetic scissors. By extracting and simplifying the genetic scissors' molecular components, they made it generally applicable. Their CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors are being used to pursue new scientific breakthroughs from better crops to new disease-fighting weapons. Read more about Doudna’s journey in her biography: https://bit.ly/3vvzTd8

Did you know that we have millions of different antibodies, but each white blood cell in our immune system produces only one kind of antibody? In 1975 Georges Köhler and Cesar Milstein developed a method to fuse a normal antibody-producing cell with a tumour cell, forming a hybrid that was both immortal and could create a specific antibody. Their hybrid cell could produce antibodies of the same type – monoclonal antibodies – in whatever quantities are needed for research and medicine. The production of monoclonal antibodies has enabled researchers to improve tests for infectious diseases, design completely new therapeutic strategies for diseases such as cancer, better explain the mechanisms behind autoimmune diseases and suppress rejection in organ transplants among other breakthroughs. While the market for monoclonal antibodies is now worth billions of dollars, Köhler and Milstein did not patent their technique or benefit financially by forming a company, instead remaining in research. Köhler shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Niels K. Jerne and César Milstein. Learn more about their work: https://bit.ly/3XLsMYX Image: Anti-Cancer Antibodies. Small chemical ornaments (cones) slow the release of anti-cancer antibodies (blue) from this functionalised mesoporous silica (orange).

Martin Luther King Jr began writing 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' in the margins of a newspaper on this day in 1963. It was given to his lawyers and published by several American newspapers and magazines during the summer of 1963. The letter, which became an important text for the Civil Rights movement, defends nonviolent resistance to racism and argues that people have a responsibility to take action against unjust laws. Learn more about Martin Luther King Jr's life: https://bit.ly/2Lehne0

"When I see some of the injuries on the women and children, I realise this type of violence has little to do with sex and much more with power through a sort of terrorism." - Denis Mukwege, interview with Warscapes and The Guardian, 22 May 2015. The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two extraordinary individuals, Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, for their tireless efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. Their courage and dedication have inspired countless people around the world. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, has spent his career treating thousands of women who have been victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His work at Panzi Hospital has been instrumental in providing medical care and support to those affected by conflict. Nadia Murad, an Iraqi Yazidi, was a victim of ISIS brutality but has become a powerful voice for justice. She has advocated tirelessly for the rights of women and minorities, highlighting the need for international action against genocide and sexual violence. "My story is the best weapon I have against terrorism, and I plan on using it until those terrorists are put on trial." - Nadia Murad, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity and My Fight Against the Islamic State, 2017. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/eF8JAfkx