Everyday Scientist

2012 nobel prize predictions

It’s time again for my annual blog post Nobel Prize predictions. This year I’m limiting to the chemistry prizes. Of course there are many more individuals and discoveries that should be listed below and even more who deserve a Nobel Prize!

Single-Molecule Spectroscopy

Moerner [awarded in 2014], Orrit

Single-molecule imaging has matured to an important technique in biophysics. Just go to a Biophysical Society meeting and see all the talks and posters with “single molecule” in the title! Single-molecule techniques have begun to answer biological questions that would be obscured in traditional imaging. Moreover, super-resolution techniques such as PALM and STORM rely directly on detecting single molecules and the spectroscopic techniques developed in the late 80s and 90s. W.E. Moerner won the 2008 Wolf Prize in Chemistry.

Electrochemistry/Bioinorganic Electron Transfer

Bard, Gray

Al Bard won the 2008 Wolf Prize in Chemistry; Harry Gray won it in 2004.

Polymer Synthesis

Matyjaszewski, Frechet

Jean Frechet invented chemically-amplified photoresists and developed dendrimer synthesis. Kris Matyjaszewski won the 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for ATRP polymerization. Of course, others were involved in both discoveries.

GPCR Structure

Kobilka, Stevens, and Palczewski

Biomolecule structures have won chemistry Nobels in the past, so I’m including G-protein coupled receptors here. A lot of buzz in the last couple years about GPCRs and Nobel. Good article here.

Update 10/10/12: Kobilka wins.

Chaperonins

Horwich, Hartl

Although these are biological molecules, they are still molecules. And many Chemistry Nobels have gone to bio-related discoveries in the last couple decades. Both won the Lasker Award in 2011.

Biomolecular Motors

Vale, Spudich, Sheetz

Another bio subject, but you really never know with the Chemistry prize. All three just won the Lasker Award this year.

(BTW, check out other predictions at ChemBark and The Curious Wavefunction and Thompson. And my prior predictions.)

(P.S. W.E. Moerner was my PhD advisor. Also, I worked in a collaboration with Kris Matyjaszewski when I was an undergrad.)

Update 9/11/12: I added chaperonins and biomolecular motors because I figure this year’s Chemistry Nobel might be more biological.

Update 10/3/12: Paul and I were interviewed for a Slate.com piece on Nobel Prize predictions. I like Paul’s section, especially about Djerassi. Anyway, here is what I said:

The line between chemistry and other fields (especially biology) is often blurred, and that’s a wonderful thing; but this fact sometimes results in a chemistry Nobel Prize being awarded for a decidedly biological discovery (like the 2009 prize for the structure of the ribosome). This may be exacerbated by the fact that the physiology or medicine prize tends to go to things directly related to health, and the chemistry prize often is used to cover the more basic biological science feats. Personally, I think it is a testament to the central position the field of chemistry holds in the Venn diagram of science.

My top prediction is for single-molecule spectroscopy. In 1989, W.E. Moerner at IBM (now at Stanford) was the first to use light (lasers) to perform measurements on single molecules. Before this, millions or trillions of molecules or more were measured together to detect an average signal. His amazingly difficult feat required ultrasensitive detection techniques, perfect samples, and temperatures just above absolute zero! A year later, Michel Orrit in France observed the fluorescent photons from a single molecule. With those early experiments, Moerner and others laid the experimental groundwork for imaging single molecules.

Single-molecule spectroscopy and imaging has become a subfield unto itself. I performed my Ph.D. research in the Moerner lab, and I know firsthand that the technique reveals events that would otherwise be hidden in averages of “bulk” measurements. Biophysics, the field of understanding how cells and biomolecules operate on a physical level, is particularly aided because rare events can have major effects in biology. (Think of a single cell mutating and then dividing into a tumor.) For example, Sunney Xie at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (now at Harvard) performed the early work on how individual enzymes experience multiple states, which otherwise would be averaged away in a bulk experiment. More recently, imaging single molecules has been instrumental in novel “super-resolution” techniques that reveal structures in cells at tenfold higher resolution than ever available before. Several companies (Pacific Biosciences, Helicos, Illumina, Life Technologies) have either released or are developing products that use single-molecule imaging to sequence individual strands of DNA. My prediction is bolstered by others along the same vein. In 2008, Moerner won the Wolf Prize in Chemistry, which is often considered a harbinger for the Nobel. More importantly, The Simpsons were betting on Moerner in 2010. Of course, that was Milhouse’s prediction, and maybe it’s more reasonable to go with Lisa.

My other prediction is for biomolecular motors (aka molecular motors). These are proteins in cells that move important cargo around, and on a more practical level, make muscles contract. Ron Vale (now at University of California, San Francisco) and Michael Sheetz (now at Columbia) discovered kinesin, a protein that walks along tiny tubes and pulls cargo to different parts of the cell. This is supremely important because it would take far too long (months in some cases) for diffusion alone to bring nutrients and signaling molecules to all parts of the cell. (Interestingly, kinesin was discovered from the neurons of squids because they are extraordinarily long cells!) Jim Spudich (at Stanford), Sheetz, Vale, and others have developed many important techniques for studying the actions of these tiny machines. Spudich shared this year’s Lasker Award, which many see portending a Nobel, with Vale and Sheetz.

It’s hard not to allow hope to creep into almost anything we humans do, and I have clearly failed to prevent my own desires from influencing my predictions: I would be thrilled to see either of the above discoveries—or any that I list on my blog—win a prize. But there are many, many deserving scientists who have discovered amazing things and helped millions of people. Unfortunately, only a handful of these amazing individuals will be awarded the ultimate recognition in science. So it goes.

2011 nobel predictions

Wow, it’s already Nobel season! ChemBark and the Curious Wavefunction already have predictions. My 2010 Nobel predictions are here (and, of course, the Simpsons had their own last year). I don’t have too much to add to my 2010 predictions; instead, I’m going to put my chips all in and give just one prediction for each category.

Physics: Moerner [awarded in Chemistry in 2014], for single-molecule spectroscopy

Chemistry: Matyjaszewski, for polymer synthesis

Medicine: Djerassi, for The Pill

Peace: Twitter, for liberating Egypt

Literature: Twitter, for making literature shorter

nobel roundup

Hmmm. IVF but no The Pill. (Actually, I think that would have been a good split prize for Medicine. Would have been a big FU to the Vatican, though.)

And Scotch tape graphene won the physics prize. Weird. Graphene is very new and basically unapplied as yet. But the Nobels are supposed to go to discoveries, and pulling graphene off of graphite with Scotch tape is a discovery.

And it was cross-coupling for chemistry (our #16 prediction): Heck, Negishi, and Suzuki. Oops, we mispredicted Sonogashira. I don’t know enough about organic reactions to know if this was the right move, but most folks are saying Negishi deserved it.

Congrats to all these well-deserving laureates! Hearts out to all those who were hoping for the prize this year, and didn’t get the call. (Especially Sonogashira, who must be pretty bummed right now…)

Read Paul’s liveblogging of the announcement.

Now just waiting for Twitter to win the Peace prize!

UPDATE: A guide to reporters by Chemjobber.

the simpsons have their own nobel predictions

This was on The Simpsons last night:

(the screenshot is from 1 min 22 sec on Hulu)

I may update my predictions to reflect the venerated opinions of cartoon writers.

By the way, seeing my PhD advisor and a member of my dissertation committee listed on The Simpsons feels really strange.

(My/our real predictions are here.)

2010 nobel predictions

In previous years, I’ve awarded Edsel-Nobels, which no one really cared about. Maybe this is the year I’ll make predictions for the actual Nobel. Paul at Chembark already started his predictions, and everyone else will be buzzing about it soon enough.

In no particular order (and without much forethought):

1. Solar: Grätzel
2. Super-resolution optical microscopy: Betzig [awarded in 2014], Hell [awarded in 2014], Zhuang, Hess
3. Cloaking: Pendry
4. Birth control: Djerassi
5. Laser-induced fluorescence: Zare
6. Inorganic: Gray, Lippard
7. Single-molecule spectroscopy: Moerner [awarded in 2014], Orrit, Rigler, Xie
8. Chaperonins and protein folding: Horwich, Hartl, Lindquist, Ellis
9. DNA fingerprinting: Jefferys
10. Electrochemistry: Bard, Nocera
11. Polymer synthesis: Matyjaszewski, Wang
12. NMR and membranes: McConnell
13. Discovery of kinesin: Sheetz, Vale, Brady
14. Nano: Whitesides
15. Peace: Twitter
16. Cross-coupling: Suzuki, Heck, [awarded in 2010] Sonogashira
17. Electron Transfer in DNA/Electrochemical DNA Damage Sensors: Barton, Giese, Schuster
18. Pd-catalyzed Alkyne/Alkene Coupling and Atom-Economy: Trost
19. Nuclear hormone receptors: Chambon, Evans, Jensen, O’Malley
20. Two-photon microscopy: Webb, Denk, Strickler
21. DNA microarrays: Brown
22. NLO: Harris (as predicted by The Simpsons)

So there. The only one I’m confident about is Twitter.

Please feel free to add more in the comments. I will probably continue to update this…

UPDATE: Paul now has updated odds. Very impressive. He’s put a lot more thought into this than I. I’ve added cross-coupling to the list. Additions are in italics.

UPDATE: Can you name all the Chemistry Nobel winners?

UPDATE: Thompson has released their predictions.

UPDATE: The Simpsons also have some predictions.

2008 EDSEL-Nobel in Chemistry

Well, its that time of year again. Nobels will be rolling out soon! Carbon-Based Curiosities has already awarded their CBC Nobel to Krzysztof Matyjasewski of CMU. I endorse this choice, because I have a scientific connection to Kris: My undergrad lab collaborated with him very closely. I even have a paper with both our names on it! So I’d be happy if he won.

But I’ll award the EDSEL-Nobel to someone else, if just to be a contrarian. One thing I promise: I’m not going to put much thought into this.

A few people are unjustly disqualified from this competition: Roger Tsien (too obvious); W.E. Moerner (my PI, wouldn’t be fair); Barry Trost (who?); and myself (because the truths I have revealed in my research would just rip open everybody’s minds!). Some of the criteria I used to judge included: the person’s name size on my CUL author cloud; their index (which is my new citation index, defined as the person’s h index divided by 2π in order to account for self-referencing); and the extent to which I actually believe their reported results.

This year’s EDSEL-Nobel goes jointly to Peter Schultz (Scripps) and Carolyn Bertozzi (Berkeley) for “their applications of click chemistry to something practical: totally messing with cells and making them glow and stuff.”

Schultz has introduced azide/alkyne (and many other) unnatural amino acids into the genetic machinery, thus inserting a specific site for labeling with fluorphores or other probes. Here’s a good Schultz review paper. Bertozzi feeds cells unnatural sugars that have “bioorthogonal” reactive groups (click or otherwise). Here’s a good Bertozzi review paper. Other labs have actually applied these techniques for successful labeling and biophysics experiments. And I suspect their techniques will become streamlined and more broadly accessible in the future. Or maybe not and I awarded this prize prematurely.