The 2017 Nobel Prizes in Science

10/7/2017

The winners of the 2017 Nobel Prize were announced this week, much to the delight of scientists, readers, and enthusiasts around the world. I’ll briefly discuss the science-related awards for this year. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has yet to be awarded.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson, and Jacques Dubochet for, “developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution.” Their pioneering work has allowed researchers and clinicians to visualize the structure of drugs, compounds, and proteins at some of the highest-resolution ever seen. By understanding how these molecules look and behave in solution, better applications can be developed for their use in health and technology.

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Michael Rosbach, Michael Young, and Jeffrey Young for “their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.” The circadian clock is the regulatory system that governs the biological clock of the human body and within human tissues. The centers in the brain that control the circadian clock regulate human and animal sleep cycles and are controlled by light and hormones.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Kip Thorne, and Barry Barish for “decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.” Gravitational waves are the curvature of spacetime due to gravitational objects colliding or moving in space. The waves propagate out from each disturbance like the ripples in a pond after a stone has been thrown. Albert Einstein and other physicists famously predicted their occurrence but did not have the technology to detect them. Until now that is!

It is always exciting to see who gets these prestigious awards. Congrats to all the winners!