The Nobel Prize

“My lab knows that I am a mom first, and the flexibility that academic science provides makes having a career and a family possible,” said medicine laureate Carol Greider. While not all researchers enjoy this level of flexibility, Greider can work from home, or see a school play in the middle of the day and finish her work later. “The main thing is to find the time to get things done, it is not the hours at work but the overall productivity that counts. Having flexibility takes a huge amount of pressure off,” she said. At the age of 23, before she had earned her PhD, Greider had made the discovery that would earn her the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She shared the prize with Elizabeth Blackburn and Jack Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase". Learn more about her work: https://lnkd.in/eyBW8ZZZ

Do you have a favourite Nobel Prize discovery or laureate? Have our posts impacted you in a positive way? We've now reached one million followers on LinkedIn and would like to say thank you to everyone who engages with us as we continue to realise Alfred Nobel's vision of awarding outstanding efforts in science, literature, and peace. Celebrations in this video: Svante Pääbo- 2022 medicine prize Morten Meldal- 2022 chemistry prize Carolyn Bertozzi- 2022 chemistry prize Barry Sharpless- 2001 and 2022 chemistry prize Anne L'Huillier- 2023 physics prize Benjamin List- 2021 chemistry prize World Food Program- 2020 peace prize

"Without nuclear arms, we run less risk of being drawn into the orbit of the great powers, with their hyper-dangerous weapons. And after all, there is no defense against them." - peace activist Alva Myrdal in 1982 Alva Myrdal was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Alfonso García Robles, for their work for disarmament and nuclear-weapon-free zones. From 1962 to 1970, Alva Myrdal represented the Social Democratic Party in the Swedish Riksdag, or parliament. As the government minister in charge of disarmament issues, Myrdal was an innovator. She led the Swedish delegation at the Geneva disarmament negotiations and as a spokesperson for a small, non-aligned nation, she actively sought to encourage the disarmament of the Soviet Union and USA. The nuclear race was a major concern, and Myrdal supported the establishment of nuclear-free zones in Europe, believing that every country should declare itself free of nuclear weapons. Learn more about her life: https://bit.ly/41SuFFH

"This award shines a needed light on the path the ban treaty provides towards a world free of nuclear weapons. Before it is too late, we must take that path." International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), 7 October 2017. This statement from the 2017 peace prize laureate ICAN couldn’t be more relevant today. Working towards a world free from nuclear weapons was also recognised by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to Nihon Hidankyo. ICAN is an organisation that mobilises people in all countries to persuade their governments to start negotiating a ban on nuclear weapons. ICAN was formed in 2007, and is a global movement of non-governmental organisations from around 100 countries. ICAN is the leading civil society organisation working to establish an international treaty banning nuclear weapons. On 7 July 2017, 122 UN member states agreed to adopt the proposed Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.” Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/eJvfEgYE

“It's very rare that things work the first time. I have one experiment back in ‘79 that worked the first time, but this is usually not the case. We have to try again.” - physics laureate Pierre Agostini When asked what he would say to a student who had experienced a failure, Agostini advised finding out why the problem occurred and fixing it. “Most of the time you find two or three things which could have gone wrong, and you fix one after the other and usually that works,” he added. Agostini shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 2023 with Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier. Watch more of his advice in our interview with him: https://lnkd.in/eTEHQSg2

The first letter of the genetic code was cracked on 27 May 1961 at around three o'clock in the morning by Marshall Nirenberg (pictured) and Heinrich Matthaei -his post-doctoral fellow -at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). According to the office of NIH History, "the two kept their breakthrough a secret from the larger scientific community – though many NIH colleagues knew of it – until they could complete further experiments [...] and prepare papers for publication. They had solved with an experiment what others had been unable to solve with theoretical explanations and mathematical models." Nirenberg went on to share the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Gobind Khorana and Robert W. Holley for their work on the genetic code and its role in protein production. Working independently, Khorana (University of Wisconsin) had mastered the synthesis of nucleic acids, and Holley (Cornell University) had discovered the exact chemical structure of transfer-RNA. Photo: Nirenberg and some of the tools used during the period of genetic code translation.

Two years and four months ago, Oleksandra Matvichuk delivered this powerful statement while accepting the 2022 peace prize on behalf of the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties: "We received the Nobel Peace Prize during the war that Russia started. This war has been going on for 8 years, 9 months, and 21 days. For millions of people, such words as shelling, torture, deportation, and filtration camps have become familiar. But there are no words to convey the pain of a mother who lost her newborn son after the shelling of the maternity ward of the hospital. She had just hugged her child, called him by name, breastfed him, inhaled his smell, and suddenly a Russian missile destroyed her entire universe. Now, the dreamed and so desired child lies in the smallest coffin in the world." Center for Civil Liberties was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus and the Russian human rights organisation Memorial. These laureates represent civil society in their home countries and have promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens for many years. Their exceptional work in documenting war crimes, human rights abuses, and the misuse of power underscores the critical importance of civil society in promoting peace and democracy. Learn more by watching the 2022 peace prize announcement: https://bit.ly/4bI0R1O

The Higgs particle, often called the God particle, is named after pioneering physicist Peter Higgs. Higgs shared the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics with François Englert for the theory of how particles acquire mass. In 1964, independently of one another, Higgs and the team of Englert and Robert Brout proposed a theory about the existence of a particle that explains why other particles have a mass. In 2012, two experiments conducted at the CERN laboratory confirmed the existence of the Higgs particle. Watch our interview with the 2013 physics laureate: https://bit.ly/3E4ysGH

Have you heard of organic chemistry legend Robert Burns Woodward? Nature is full of organic substances - a large and highly diverse array of chemical compounds that contain the basic element carbon. Building, or synthesising, organic substances using chemical methods is important in both scientific and industrial contexts. Synthesis often entails complicated, multi-step processes. Woodward mastered these processes and successfully synthesised a large number of substances: quinine, cholesterol, cortisone, several antibiotic substances, and chlorophyll, the substance that gives leaves their green colour. Woodward and coworker William Doering completed the synthesis of quinine (in a nonstereoselective mixture) on Woodward’s 27th birthday, 10 April 1944. This led to more synthetic drugs that were able to control various stages of malaria. Woodward was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his outstanding achievements in the art of organic synthesis." Learn more: https://bit.ly/2wdavdv Photo: Harvard University, Cambridge (Mass.), 1965, Wikimedia Commons

Peace laureate Leymah Gbowee on the importance of teachers and how they plant seeds in the minds of the future generation - who is the best teacher you've ever had? Tell us in the comments section.