(This article forms a part of the Science for All newsletter that takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in! Subscribe now!)
The Nobel Week is on. Considered one of the most esteemed awards, The Nobel Prize is conferred on those who “have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”. The winners for this year’s Prizes in the science categories were announced on October 2, October 3 and October 4 respectively. This week’s newsletter takes a look at the research that won the recipients their awards.
Medicine or Physiology
The Prize for Medicine or Physiology was jointly awarded to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman “for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.”
In the 1980s, the idea of using mRNA for vaccines and therapies had gained traction, but significant obstacles remained. The in vitro transcription of mRNA turned out to be unstable and triggered inflammatory responses that made it unsuitable for clinical use. Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman’s early research focused on trying to solve this roadblock. In a seminal paper published in 2005, they found that dendritic cells – part of the immune system in mammals – recognised in vitro transcribed mRNA to be foreign and attacked them. To remedy this, they found the solution to be to alter the transcribed mRNA’s composition, which resulted in a reduced inflammatory response. This discovery was a paradigm shift and paved the way for the development of mRNA vaccines.
Physics
The Prize for Physics was shared by Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier for their “experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses for the study of electron dynamics in matter.”
Their groundbreaking experiments have allowed scientists to delve into the ultra-fast realm of electrons by producing incredibly brief pulses of light. In this microscopic world, where events transpire in a few hundred attoseconds (one attosecond is one quintillionth of a second), the cameras that see these events need to have a similar reaction time. In 1987, Anne L’Huillier and her group in Paris discovered the basic principles of generating attosecond light pulses by passing infrared light through a noble gas. In 1994, Pierre Agostini and his colleagues found a way to measure the duration of a light pulse, to check if it’s really a few attoseconds long. Finally, in 2001, Dr. Agostini’s group as well as Ferenc Krausz’s group in Vienna used these principles to produce and study attosecond light pulses.
Chemistry
Three scientists Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov were awarded the Prize in Chemistry “for the discovery and synthesis of quantum dots.”
Quantum dots are crystals just a few nanometres wide whose properties are governed by quantum mechanics. Importantly, their properties depend on their size. In the early 1980s, Alexei Ekimov in the Soviet Union first created them when he was studying silicate glass tinted with copper chloride crystals. A couple of years later, Louis Brus in the U.S. extended this feat by creating similar crystals in a fluid. Both scientists and their colleagues and peers also refined the community’s understanding of these tiny crystals and their unique properties. In 1993, Moungi Bawendi’s team made a breakthrough by developing a method to produce nearly flawless quantum dots in large numbers. Today, quantum dots are used to light screens and monitors and in some forms of medical imaging and surgery, and their use is being explored in several branches of chemistry and materials science.
