Meet the Winners of Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine 2015

Friends, the Nobel Season for the year 2015 started today (5th October) with the announcement of the Winners for Physiology / Medicine for the 106th time. Three scientists from Japan, China and Ireland whose discoveries led to the development of potent new drugs against parasitic diseases including malaria and elephantiasis won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for the year 2015.

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2015 was divided, one half to Youyou Tu (Left)  "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria" and the other half jointly to William C. Campbell (Right) and Satoshi Ōmura (Middle) "for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites" and the other half .

Quick Facts about Nobel Physiology / Medicine 2015 Awardees

• Youyou Tu

• From : China
• Currently working at :  China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China
• Prize Share : 1/2
• She won this award for : her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria

• Satoshi Ōmura

• From : Japan
• Current working at : Kitasato University, Tokyo, Japan
• Prize Share : 1/4
• He won this award for : His discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites

• William C. Campbell

• From : Ireland
• Currently working at : Drew University, Madison, NJ, USA
• Prize Share : 1/4
• He won this award for : His discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites

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Meet the Winners of Nobel prize in Medicine 2014

The Nobel Prize in Physiology / Medicine for the year 2014 has announced today. Three neuroscientists have honored with this award. They are British-American John O'Keefe and Norwegian couple May-Britt and Edvard I Moser, for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the fields of life sciences and medicine. This award was established in the year 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.

One of the winners of Nobel Prize in Medicine 2014, John O'Keefe is an American British neuroscientist and a professor at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and the Department of Anatomy (University College London). The winners May-Britt Moser and Edvard I Moser are husband and wife. They both are neuroscientists and Founding Directors of The Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory (KI/CBM) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway.

They have discovered a positioning system, an "inner GPS" in the brain that makes it possible to orient ourselves in space, demonstrating a cellular basis for higher cognitive function. Initiated by John O' Keefe in 1971, by discovering the first component of this positioning system. He found that a type of nerve cell in an area of the brain called the hippocampus that was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. Other nerve cells were activated when the rat was at other places. O'Keefe concluded that these "place cells" formed a map of the room. More than three decades later, in 2005, May‐Britt and Edvard Moser discovered another key component of the brain's positioning system. They identified another type of nerve cell, which they called "grid cells", that generate a coordinate system and allow for precise positioning and pathfinding. Their subsequent research showed how place and grid cells make it possible to determine position and to navigate.

This research has solved a problem that has occupied philosophers and scientists for centuries "how does the brain create a map of the space surrounding us and how can we navigate our way through a complex environment ?" The physics, chemistry, literature and peace awards will be announced later this week. The economics prize will be announced next Monday.

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Meet the Winners of Nobel prize in Chemistry 2014

Two American Scientists and one German Scientist have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the year 2014. The winners are Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner, the Nobel committee in Sweden announced today. They won this award for smashing the size barrier in optical microscopes, allowing researchers to see individual molecules inside living cells.

Eric Betzig is working at the Howard Hughes Medfical Institute in Ashburn, Virginia. Hell is director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, Germany and E. Moerner is a professor at Stanford University in California. "Due to their achievements the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in awarding the 8 million crown ($1.1 million) prize.

Last year’s Noble Chemistry award went to a group of three scientists of United States  Martin Karplus , Michael Levitt  and Arieh Warshel for devising computer simulations that are used to understand and predict chemical processes (Check details here). Chemistry was the third of this year's Nobel prizes. The Nobel prizes in Medicine and Physics 2014 were already announced. The Nobel Prizes 2014 for literature and economic sciences will be announced later this week, as will the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Meet the Winners of Nobel Peace Prize 2014

History was made today when an Indian and a Pakistani national jointly shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2014. The Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2014 has been jointly awarded to Indian rights activist Kailash Satyarthy and Pakistan's Malala Yusafzai.

Kailash Satyarthi is an Indian children's rights activist. He runs Bachpan Bachao Andolan Group in New Delhi, which has freed over 80,000 children from various forms of servitude and helped in successful re-integration, rehabilitation and education. He has been active in the Indian movement against child labour since the 1990s.

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani school pupil, education activist. She was shot shot at by the Taliban in 2012 for protesting against curbs on girls attending school in her town in the Swat Valley.

They are honored with this award for "their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education". There were a record 278 nominations this year, 19 more than ever before – including US whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Pope Francis. Also on the list of nominees was an anti-war clause in the Japanese constitution and the International Space Station partnership. The Nobel committee said it “regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,”.

Highlights

• An Indian wins the coveted Nobel Prize for peace after 35 years.
• Satyarthy is the second Indian after Mother Teresa, to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
• Malala at 17 years is the youngest ever winner of the prestigious peace award. 
• She is Pakistan's first Nobel laureate.

Last year The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 2013 for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons. Peace Prize was the fifth of this year's Nobel prizes. The Nobel prizes in Medicine , Physics,  Chemistry  and Literature 2014 were already announced. The Nobel Prizes 2014 for economic sciences will be announced later this week.

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Meet the Winner of Nobel prize in Literature 2014

A French novelist was honored with this year's Nobel Prize in Literature Award. Patrick Modiano, whose work focuses on the Nazi occupation and its effect on his country, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature 2014 today (9th October 2014). The Swedish committee praised the 69-year-old French writer for “the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the life-world of the occupation.” The award - which is presented to a living writer - is worth eight million kronor (£691,000).

Patrick Modiano previously won the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2012 and the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca from the Institut de France for his lifetime achievement in 2010. His novel "Missing Person" won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 1978

Last year’s Noble Literature award went to Canadian short story Writer Alice Munro for her short stories that focus on the frailties of the human condition. Literature was the fourth of this year's Nobel prizes. The Nobel prizes in Medicine , Physics and Chemistry 2014 were already announced. The Nobel Prizes 2014 for economic sciences and the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced later this week.

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Meet the Winners of Nobel prize in Physics 2014

Two Japanese scientists and an US scientist have won the prestigious Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 2014. Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano from Japan and Shuji Nakamura from United States were honored with the Nobel Physics Prize 2014 for the invention of blue light-emitting diodes a new energy efficient and environment-friendly light source. Prof Shuji Nakamura is a professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), Prof Isamu Akasaki  is a professor at Meijo University and distinguished professor at Nagoya University and Prof. Hiroshi Amano is also a professor at Nagoya University. 

The awarding committee said the trio's work is in keeping with the spirit of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the prize, because LED lights save on energy, last long and are environmentally-friendly because they don't contain mercury. For 30 years, these scientists had tried to create the blue diode. Last year’s Noble Physics award went to Britain’s Peter Higgs and Belgian colleague Francois Englert for helping to explain how matter formed after the Big Bang (Check details from here). The Nobel prizes in Medicine 2014   was already announced (check details here). The Nobel Prizes 2014 for chemistry, literature and economic sciences will be announced later this week, as will the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Meet the Winner of Nobel Prize in Economic Science 2014

The Nobel Prize in Economic Science for the year 2014 was announced today. A French Economist was honored with this award this year. Jean Tirole, whose theories about the behavior of large companies underpin modern antitrust regulation, won this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. 

This French professor of economics works on industrial organization, game theory, banking and finance, and economics and psychology. He is the chairman of the board of the Jean-Jacques Laffont Foundation at the Toulouse School of Economics, scientific director of the Industrial Economics Institute (IDEI) in Toulouse and founding member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).  He said he was very grateful for the award for his work on “taming powerful firms”.

It was the first time in more than 30 years that the prize has been given for the study of regulation, a topic that has moved well beyond academia since the financial crisis.

At the core of Mr. Tirole’s work are models, often densely mathematical, that describe monopolies, oligopolies and markets. But he has also ranged widely across industries, among them payment cards and telecommunications, to produce studies of their particular function and dysfunction. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that Mr. Tirole, 61, had helped governments tame firms by analyzing when and how regulators should intervene to constrain activities, and when to stand back. 

Three American scientists Eugene F. Fama (University of Chicago, IL, USA),  Lars Peter Hansen (University of Chicago, IL, USA) and Robert J. Shiller (Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA)  won this award for the year 2013 for research that has improved the forecasting of asset prices in the long term and helped the emergence of index funds in stock markets, the award-giving body said. According to the committee, the economists' research "laid the foundation for the current understanding of asset prices."  

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