May 21, 2007 10:52 PM
2288 Views
Top Ten Nobel Laureates in the Sciences
As aam janta, we are often interested to comprehend more about the lives of “famous / successful people”. May be in our subconscious minds, perhaps we wish, we were one of them. The media plays an extremely important role, as to who we as ordinary people get to know more about and idolize. We all know in most cases film and sports personalities, even “socialites” (never knew this was a profession) and in some cases business personalities are pursued to the hilt by the media.
Ask a lay man on the street the latest film released or the latest gossip about a particular celebrity, and chances are he/ she would tell you juicy details enthusiastically. But ask him about the recent Nobel Prize winner in Physcis/ Chemistry or Medicine and chances are he may not have a clue and look at you like you are a strange person. This is indeed a sorry state of affairs today. Its sad that we take our computers/ HDTVs/ cell phones/ latest biomedical research and medications etc for granted and never for once stop and think about the years of hard work that goes behind a scientific discovery. There is so much we still don’t know about the intricacies of human cells, but how many of us really care.
Thank God for the Nobel Foundation for bestowing recognition to scientists of different fields for their years of hard work and for truly changing our lives forever.
Here is my pick of top ten Nobel Laureates based on their discovery. There are many more scientists that I would have liked to talk about, but that will perhaps be another review topic.
1) Thomas Hunt Morgan – He is known for his immense contribution to the field of genetics. His work was awarded the first Nobel prize for genetics in 1933 for establishing that chromosomes are gene carriers. We have studied about fruit flies (in particular drosophila) being used as a model for research related to genetics, and we owe it to him.
2) Linus Pauling –This esteemed award was bestowed upon him not once but twice in his lifetime. I like to consider him as one of the pioneers of Chemistry for elucidating the basic nature of the chemical bond (Nobel Prize –1954). An avid crystallographer, he also determined the crystal structure of many inorganic compounds and then went on to study biological materials. The second Nobel prize that he won was the Nobel Peace Prize *(1962*) as he was strongly opposed to nuclear testing.
3) Frederick Sanger –I was fascinated when I read about his work as an undergrad in Biochem. It took him ten years to discover the entire protein sequence of insulin for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958. To this day, no biochemistry class is complete without being taught about “Sanger Sequencing” even though there are automated sequencing methods available today. He won his second nobel prize (1980, shared with Gilbert) for DNA-based genome sequencing, which forms the basis of the Human Genome project today.
4) J. D. van der Waals – Any one who has taken a science course has heard about the van der waals forces that play an important role as vital non-covalent forces. The PV = nRT ideal gas equation was corrected taking into consideration real gases giving rise to the van der waals equation. He won the Nobel prize in 1910 for his contribution.
5) J. H. van 't Hoff – Again we all know about the van’t Hoff factor and its implications in the dynamics of chemical equilibria and osmotic pressure. For his outstanding work, he was awarded the first Nobel prize in Chemistry in 1901.
6) Maria Curie (more well- known as Madame Curie) – Originally from Poland, she did most of her scientific work in France along with her husband Pierre Curie. She is synonymous with the discovery of radioactivity. She was the first female Nobel Prize winner and was awarded the Nobel Prize twice (1903 and 1911) (for both Physics and Chemistry) for her impeccable contribution to science.
7) J. D. Watson –Along with Crick and Wilkins he is best known for his pioneering work in elucidating the structural basis of nucleic acids – In particular for the discovering the double helical structure of DNA. This team was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962 for the same.
8) D. Baltimore – He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1975 along with pioneering scientists Dulbecco and Temin for the discovery of reverse transcription. We have all studied the process of transcription in intro bio where in DNA leads to RNA, which in turn leads to Protein synthesis. He was the first one to propose that in the case of certain viruses (eg. HIV virus), reverse transcription occurs where in RNA can lead to DNA. This work has lead to significant progress toward AIDS research and related diseases.
9) S. B. Prusiner – Various neurological diseases such as Prion, Alzhiemers and Parkinsons (to name a few) are still far from being cured. One of the major causes of such diseases is misfolding of certain proteins such as the beta-amyloid peptide, alpha-synuclein etc due to dysfunctional molecular chaperones which in turn may be caused due to genetic defects or environmental factors. Over a period of time, these proteins form neurofibrillary tangles that can aggregate and eventually form extensive deposits in the brain. Prusiner was the first to discover the toxic prion proteins, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1997. Prion proteins have also been implicated in the “Mad Cow Disease”
10) E. G. Krebbs –Studying the regulation of cellular processes has always fascinated me as there is still so much that we don’t know about the various processes involved. Phosphorylation (adding phosphate group, which may be generated either from co-factors such as NADP or NTPs such as ATP/GTP/CTP etc) is a major process in celluar respiration. However, reverse phosphorylation is also a necessary factor for maintainance of regulation of ceullar processes. This vital process was discovered by the Krebs-Fischer team who were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1992 for their outstanding work.
So, here is saluting all Nobel Prize winners in various fields and all those researchers who are still struggling day and night to make a difference to mankind in their own subtle way even though we may never know your names or faces.
References used:* 1] Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1950, 72, 5349. *2] Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1941, 63, 1342.* 3] Wikipedia
