2014 nobel predictions
September 12, 2014 at 10:07 am | sam | news, nobel, science and the publicTime for 2014 Nobel Prize predictions. Actually, it’s a little early, but with Lasker Prize announcements, I just couldn’t wait. Here’s my track record:
- 2008: I said that it was obvious that Roger Tsien would win.
- 2009: I didn’t make a prediction
- 2010: I included Suzuki and Heck in my predictions.
- 2011: I failed miserably.
- 2012: I included Kobilka and GPCRs among my six predictions.
- 2013: I (and everyone else) correctly predicted that Higgs would win.
So here are my 2014 predictions:
Chemistry: Nanotechnology: Alivisatos, Whitesides, Lieber
Medicine: DNA/blotting: Southern, Jefferys, Burnette
Physics: Cloaking/nonlinear optics: Pendry, Harris
Peace: Ebola: Médecins Sans Frontières
Other and past predictions:
Biomolecular motors: Vale, Sheetz, Spudich, Brady
Unfolded protein response: Walter, Mori
Soft lithography and microfluidics: Whitesides, Quake
Chaperonins: Horwich, Hartl, Lindquist, Ellis
Polymers: Frechet, Matyjaszewski, Wang, Willson
Electrochemistry/bioinorganic: Bard, Gray, Lippard
Single-molecule spectroscopy: Moerner [awarded in 2014], Orrit
Solar: Grätzel, Nocera
DNA synthesis: Caruthers
Next-gen sequencing: Webb, Craighead, Klenerman, Church …
Super-resolution optical microscopy: Betzig [awarded in 2014], Hell [awarded in 2014], Zhuang, Hess
NMR and membranes: McConnell
Electron Transfer in DNA/Electrochemical DNA Damage Sensors: Barton, Giese, Schuster
Pd-catalyzed Alkyne/Alkene Coupling and Atom-Economy: Trost
Nuclear hormone receptors: Chambon, Evans, Jensen, O’Malley
Two-photon microscopy: Webb, Denk, Strickler
DNA microarrays: Brown
AIDS: Hütter
The Pill: Djerassi
T-cell receptor: Allison [awarded in 2018], Reinherz, Kappler, Marrack
Suggestions from others:
Quantum dots: Brus
Lithium-ion batteries: Goodenough, Whittingham, Yoshino
CRISPR: Doudna
Optogenetics: Deisseroth, Zemelman, Miesenböck, Isacoff
Other predictions:
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Thanks for the predictions, very interesting. How about for synthetic biology: Venter, Collins, Elowitz, or CRISPR: Doudna, Charpentier?
Comment by Lars — September 14, 2014 #
Lars, those are good. However, I think that CRISPR could wait a few more years to see the true impact on biomedicine.
Comment by sam — September 15, 2014 #
Thanks….I think it will be “J. B. Goodenough” for Lithium-ion battery. The world of electronics, communications and potentially transport is powered by Li-ion batteries.
Comment by V — September 17, 2014 #
Hi V. That’s a great one. My only concern is the long list of names that would reasonably share the prize with Goodenough.
Comment by sam — September 18, 2014 #
That will be true for any field. If Goodenough gets it the award, it will be with M S Whittingham (original proposer), and Akira Yoshino (who made the device). Though, I also think the Moerner & Orrit have a good chance…not sure whether Xie will make it…
Comment by V — September 18, 2014 #
True.
Comment by sam — September 18, 2014 #
any chance for other potential laureates in the field of NMR? I see that you’ve only listed McConnell — how about Bax and Pines?
Comment by chemicalexchange_19 — September 29, 2014 #
“Pd-catalyzed Alkyne/Alkene Coupling and Atom-Economy: Trost”
This is a joke, right? A funny joke.
Comment by Nev — September 30, 2014 #
To not include David R Smith in your physics prediction is very unjust in my opinion.
Comment by Jon — October 1, 2014 #
Sam, Médecins Sans Frontières already won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999!
Comment by Kevin H — October 6, 2014 #
I guess I have a hard time seeing a TCR prize that doesn’t reward Mark Davis or Tak Mak as well.
Comment by thorazine — October 7, 2014 #
“Sam, Médecins Sans Frontières already won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999!”
And the Red Cross has won it 3 times, 4 if you include the first peace prize that went to the founder. There’s no reason you can’t win multiple, especially if you are an organization.
Comment by Jim — October 7, 2014 #
I totally agree about J B Goodenough. He should be, have been the winner for Chemistry prize.
Comment by zhaohui chen — October 7, 2014 #
I predict (a few hours before the announcement) Peter G. Schultz in Chemistry, for expanding the genetic codes of many organisms to include unnatural, lab-synthesized amino acids, which can then be genetically programmed to incorporate into any site of any protein of interest. AND for generating an autonomous 21-amino-acid bacterium, which biosynthesizes a novel, previously unnatural 21st amino acid from basic carbon sources, and incorporates that new amino acid into its genetic code.
Comment by Goblinshark17 — October 7, 2014 #
Schultz, continued
Schultz is also the leading pioneer in the development of combinatorial chemsitry–screenable molecular libraries, surface display chips, high-throughput screening methods.
Comment by Goblinshark17 — October 7, 2014 #
Sorry to read that Harden McConnell died recently. He was always cheerful and insightful at chemistry events when I was at Stanford.
Comment by sam — October 13, 2014 #