The Nobel Prize

1990 medicine laureate Joseph Murray is best known for his pioneering work in organ transplantation. On 23 December 1954, he performed the world's first successful human kidney transplant in Boston, USA. The kidney was taken from a healthy donor and transplanted into a patient suffering from chronic kidney disease. The two were identical twins. Murray would later write about the collective hush in the operating room when blood began to flow into the new kidney. Murray's work demonstrated that it was possible to transplant organs from one person to another without the body rejecting the new organ. In 1961, Murray performed the first kidney transplant between two non-related humans. As transplantation protocols advanced and new immunosuppressant therapies became available, the survival rates for transplant recipients increased dramatically. This would later lead to the establishment of national donor programmes. Other organ transplants soon followed, including liver and heart transplants. In 2022, the United States reached one million transplants. An estimated 140,000 organ transplants occur worldwide each year. For this groundbreaking work, Murray was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990. Learn more about Murray: https://bit.ly/3NfvU8v

Wangari Maathai was a Nobel Prize laureate of many firsts: the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, the first female professor in Kenya and the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Born on this day, she was a committed environmentalist and founded the Green Belt Movement, which led to the planting of millions of trees. Learn more: https://bit.ly/39kcJFt

"We can only defend life if we experience a revival of this feeling of solidarity with nature." In his banquet speech, literature laureate and poet Octavio Paz talked about how we are destroying our planet and how the most central question is the survival of the environment. Paz was awarded the 1990 literature prize for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterised by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity. Read his full speech here: https://bit.ly/2TbTyaQ

Can you name a Nobel Prize laureate that has an asteroid named after them? Particle physicist Carlo Rubbia is one of those lucky laureates. Asteroid 8398 Rubbia was discovered on 12 December, 1993 at the Observatory of Farra d'Isonzo. The asteroid orbits the Sun in the asteroid belt. Rubbia was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1984 for work that led to the discovery of W and Z bosons. He received the physics prize together with Simon van der Meer. Learn more about the physics laureate in this interview: https://bit.ly/3DiqUQt Photo: An illustration, created in March 2021, that depicts asteroid Psyche, which lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

"You can find the role models you are looking for." 2022 chemistry laureate Carolyn Bertozzi shares an important message to all who don't see themselves represented in mainstream science. Who is your role model? #WomenInScience

Who is the youngest person to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics? Here are some clues: • He was one of the founders of the scientific field of X-ray crystallography • His father was also a laureate • He won a Nobel Prize when he was just 25 The answer is Lawrence Bragg, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics 1915 with his father, William Bragg. Lawrence was born on this day in 1890. For a long time, Lawrence Bragg was not always recognised in his own right for his seminal work in formulating the law that helped give birth to the scientific field of X-ray crystallography. For example, in 1913, shortly after Lawrence’s law was published, his father was invited to an important conference, but he was not invited. He did at least receive a postcard signed by famous participants, including other laureates such as Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Max von Laue, Hendrik Lorentz, and Ernest Rutherford, congratulating him for "advancing the course of natural science." When the Braggs were both awarded the Barnard Medal in the spring of 1915, Rutherford wrote to William Bragg expressing that: "It is very early for your boy [Lawrence] to be getting these distinctions." A few months later, Lawrence Bragg made Nobel Prize history by becoming a laureate at 25 years old. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3OEok9O

“Science is not only working with machines and gas or lasers, it’s working with people,” says Anne L’Huillier. The physics laureate believes successful scientists must build effective working groups and relationships with colleagues. “I believe that communication, teaching and research goes hand in hand.” She also thinks they should be motivated, passionate and obstinate in the face of failure. “It is very important not to give up because something fails or because you don’t know where it’s going,” she adds. L’Huillier tries to nurture her students’ independence and motivation. “I think that a successful scientist, whether it’s in academia or industry, should have motivation by himself or herself. This is what I’m trying to get from the students - that they are motivated for what they’re doing. This needs a little bit of time and care, so I’m not pressing my students […] to work more. It should come from themselves,” she explains. Learn more about L’Huillier’s own research: https://lnkd.in/dqA4pe_n

The reveal of chlorofluorocarbons' (CFCs) potential to destroy the ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere was a life-changing discovery. Chemistry laureate Mario Molina and his co-laureate Sherwood Rowland demonstrated that CFC gases, freons, have a damaging effect on ozone in the atmosphere. Freons had many uses, including propellants in spray cans and refrigerants in refrigerators. By limiting the use of freons, the depletion of the ozone layer was slowed. According to a United Nations report published in January 2023, the ozone layer is now slowly but noticeably healing. Video: Ozone layer during September-October 2019. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

"I did not set out to be the first female engineer to break into this rarefied territory, but I was one of the first to be given the chance to show what she could do. Only the ninth woman to be hired on the Caltech faculty, I am the first female Nobel Laureate there. Many brilliant women have joined science and engineering faculties in my lifetime, and I predict that many more of the highest recognitions of women’s scientific contributions are coming." - the star of enzyme engineering, 2018 chemistry laureate Frances Arnold, in her Nobel Prize biography. Read more about Frances Arnold's life: https://bit.ly/3tjHmpU

"Nobody feels the joy of the Eid as much as children, and when we were children, we could hardly contain our excitement while waiting for it: pocket money, new outfits, new shoes. We would put on these valuable garments and go out to show them off to the other children of the neighbourhood." - literature laureate Naguib Mahfouz Eid Mubarak! عيد مبارك Wishing a happy Eid to everyone that celebrates. In 1988 the literature prize was awarded to Naguib Mahfouz who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind. Read excerpts from "Naguib Mahfouzat Sidi Gaber - Reflections of a Nobel Laureate, 1994-2001": https://bit.ly/3R4TFmS