The Nobel Prize. A mark of prestige and achievement. A yearly prize given to those who have made significant achievements in the fields of Literature, Peace, Economics, and fields of science. Past Nobel Prize winners include big names such as Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa and Malala Yousafzai.
McGill University is no stranger to Nobel Prize winners. Our university boasts twelve Nobel Prize-winning faculty and alumni, which is the most of any Canadian university. The majority of this year’s Nobel Prizes have been given out, except for Economics, which will be announced Monday, October 12th at approximately 1:00pm. With this in mind, here is a breakdown of all of this year’s Nobel Prize winners and some of the work that they’ve been doing to help better our world.
Physics
Takaaki Kajita (above) and Arthur B. McDonald (below).
The Winner(s): Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald
The Achievement: Kajita and McDonald were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics for “the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass.”
Why Does this Matter: As an international development student, I’m no science expert, but according to Kajita, the discovery goes above and beyond “the standard model of particle physics.”
Interesting Fact: Arthur McDonald is currently based out of Queen’s University. These friends of ours are located in Kingston, Ontario, which is only about three hours away from Montreal.
Chemistry
The Winner(s): Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar
The Achievement: Lindahl, Modrich, and Sancar were jointly awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “mechanistic studies in DNA repair.”
Why Does this Matter: According to Lindahl, studies in DNA repair can be used towards the treatment of cancer and even other diseases such as diabetes.
Interesting Fact: Lindhal is the first Swede to win the Chemistry prize in 67 years. Aziz Sancar is also the first Turkish-born scientist to receive the Nobel Prize.
Physiology or Medicine
The Winner(s): William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura, Youyou Tu
The Achievements: Campbell and Omura were awarded 1/4 of the prize each for “their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites.” Tu was awarded the other half of the prize for “her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria.”
Why Does this Matter: Campbell and Omura’s research into the drug Ivermectin has helped to prevent blindness. Campbell explains that this has allowed people to return to certain areas and help repopulate them, since they had previously been abandoned because of disease. As for Tu’s achievement, malaria is one of the most rampant diseases in certain parts of the world, with almost 200 million cases present in 2013. Tu’s work on the drug Artemisinin has helped to save millions of lives and will continue to do so.
Interesting Fact: Omura discovered the microorganism that was used to produce Ivermectin on a golf course.
Literature
The Winner: Svetlana Alexievich
The Achievements: Alexievich was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time.”
Why Does this Matter: Alexievich is most well-known for her body of work “Voices of Utopia”, which depicts individual recollection of life in the Soviet Union. She covers a number of different topics, from the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, to the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan. Because she tells stories from an individual’s perspective, it allows for the reader to connect better to a part of history that many people do not have much experience with.
Interesting Fact: Alexievich is originally from Belarus, but because of her criticism of Alexander Lukashenko and his government, she has had to live abroad in places such as Italy, France, and Sweden.
Peace
The Winner: National Dialogue Quartet
The Achievements: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to National Dialogue Quartet for “its decisive contribution to the building of a pluralistic democracy in Tunisia in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution of 2011.”
Why Does this Matter: After the culmination of the Arab Spring and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia, the process of democratization was in danger of collapsing. There was a large amount of social and political unrest taking place. National Dialogue Quartet, which is composed of 4 separate organizations that work towards different facets of Tunisian society, worked as a mediator to ensure a smooth transition to democracy for the country.
Interesting Fact: Many people had predicted that this particular prize would go to a more well known figure, such as the Pope or Angela Merkel, but the fact that the prize was given to a relatively unknown organization represents an show of solidarity for people and organizations who do good work whether or not the world is watching.
Make sure to watch for this year’s winner of the Prize in Economic Sciences, revealed this Monday, October 12th!
Information and images obtained from:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/all/index.html
http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/malaria/en/
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/oct/08/everything-you-ne…
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/09/who-are-the-tunisia-nationa…
https://www.mcgill.ca/about/points-pride
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/archive/e/ed/20131011153017!No…
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-KQ192_nobel1_G_201510060838…
http://www.queensu.ca/gazette/mc_administrator/sites/default/files/asset…
http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-KQ791_nobel1_J_201510071034…
http://i.cbc.ca/1.3256786.1444051294!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/…
http://english.mathrubhumi.com/polopoly_fs/1.585340!image/image.jpg_gen/…