The annual Nobel Prize season, which attracts global attention, will once again kick off.
According to the official website of the Nobel Prize Committee, the results of the 2024 Nobel Prize selection will be announced from October 7th to 14th.
Physiology or Medicine Award - The earliest release date is Monday, October 7th at 11:30 Central European Summer Time;
Physics Prize - The earliest release date is Tuesday, October 8th at 11:45 Central European Summer Time;
Chemistry Prize - The earliest release date is Wednesday, October 9th at 11:45 Central European Summer Time;
Literature Award - The earliest release date is Thursday, October 10th at 1:00 PM Central European Summer Time;
The Peace Prize - The earliest release date is Friday, October 11th at 11:00 Central European Summer Time;
The Economics Prize - The earliest release date is Monday, October 14th at 11:45 Central European Summer Time.
Since the beginning of this year, several awards with the title of "Nobel laureates" have been announced, including Chinese scientists, GLP-1 "weight loss drug" pioneers, and the founder of Google DeepMind. And who will receive the Nobel Prize this year? Perhaps we can catch a glimpse from various' wind indicators'.
Lasker Award: Chinese scientist and GLP-1 "weight loss drug" pioneer awarded
From the order of announcement, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be the first Nobel Prize to be announced this year.
On September 19th, the Lasker Prize, known as the "barometer" of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, just announced the list of winners for 2024.
The Lasker Award, also known as the Lasker Medical Award, is the most prestigious biomedical award in the United States and has enjoyed a high reputation in the biomedical community since its establishment. According to statistics, 86 Lasker Award winners have already won the Nobel Prize, such as mRNA pioneers Dr. Katalin Kariko and Dr. Drew Weissman who won the Lasker Award in 2023 and then the Nobel Prize that year.
Among them, Chinese scientist Chen Zhijian won the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. Chen Zhijian discovered cyclic guanylate adenylate synthase (cGAS) and its role in cells, which became a key breakthrough in understanding how the immune system recognizes foreign DNA.
It is worth noting that on September 17th this year, Chen Zhijian also received important awards in the field of German medicine, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstadt Prize.
Joel Habener from Massachusetts General Hospital, Svetlana Mojsov from Rockefeller University, and Lotte Bjerre Knudsen from Novo Nordisk have been awarded the Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research.
Behind this is the GLP-1 "weight loss drug" that has gained worldwide popularity.
Among the three award winners, Habener and Mojsov's research respectively identified the active form of GLP-1 and its important role in insulin secretion; Knudsen and his team converted these research findings into clinically applicable and effective weight loss drugs.
As stated in the award speech of the Lasker Award, "With the efforts of the three of them, we have entered a new era of weight management, and GLP-1 based drugs are expected to significantly improve people's health
Quarraisha Abdool Karim and Salim S. Abdool Karim from the AIDS Research Center in South Africa/Columbia University in the United States won the Lasker Prize for Public Service. They clarified the key driving factors of heterosexual HIV transmission, introduced life-saving methods to prevent and treat HIV, and carried out key research on HIV and tuberculosis combined treatment.
Citation Laureate Award: Google DeepMind Founder Selected
The Citation Laureate Award is a list of "Nobel Prize Winners Predictions" released by the headquarters of Clarivate Analytics, which selects researchers who meet the Nobel Prize level in the fields of biomedical, physics, chemistry, and economics based on the citation rate of research papers. According to the official website, as of now, it has successfully predicted 75 Nobel laureates.
List of successful predictions for 2023
In this year's 2024 Citation Laureate list, 22 scientists and economists from 6 countries have been selected. This year's awardees have made significant contributions in promoting the development of key fields, including clean energy, nanotechnology, protein three-dimensional structures, the economic impact of corruption, heart disease, molecular dynamics, quantum computing, genomic imprinting (also known as genetic imprinting), and condensed matter physics.
Among them, the fields of physiology or medicine involve: new drugs for cardiovascular disease (Jonathan C. Cohen and Helen H. Hobbs), physiological research on the basal ganglia (Ann M. Graybiel, Hikaka Akihide Wolfram Schultz）， Genomic imprinting (Davor Solter, Azim Surani);
The awards in the field of physics involve quantum algorithms and computation (David Deutsch, Peter W. Shor), as well as research on magic angle bilayer graphene and related molar quantum devices (Rafi Bistritzer Pablo Jarillo-Herrero、Allan H. MacDonald）， Atomic force microscope (Christoph Gerber);
The awards in the field of chemistry involve: three-dimensional structure and function of proteins (David Baker, John M. Jumper, Head of Google DeepMind, and Demis Hassabis, Founder and CEO of Google DeepMind), water splitting photocatalysts (10% of the total), and the Car Barrinello method for ab initio molecular dynamics simulations (Roberto Car Michele Parrinello）；
The awards in the field of economics involve: economic analysis of children's growth, integration of nature and natural resources into human economic research, and empirical research on the impact of corruption on investment and economic growth.
Gairdner Award: CAR-T cell therapy and DNA sequencing win recognition
The list of winners for this year's Gairdner Prize was announced in April of this year. This award is known as the "Little Nobel Prize of Canada" and is often regarded as a benchmark for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, aimed at recognizing and rewarding their outstanding achievements in basic research that affects human health. So far, a total of 98 Gairdner Prize winners have also been awarded the Nobel Prize.
The Gairdner Award is divided into three categories: International Award, Global Health Award, and Whitman Award. Among them, the International Award is the most widely recognized and aims to recognize outstanding biomedical scientists who have made unique contributions to medicine.
This year's Gairdner International Prize was awarded to CAR-T cell therapy (Zelig Eshhar and Michel Sadelain) and DNA sequencing (Shankar Balasubramanian, David Klenerman, and Pascal Mayer).
It is worth noting that the entire process of Nobel Prize selection is confidential and has not been reviewed. The list of candidates will not be made public for 50 years, except for the announcement of the final winner's name. Even if this deadline has passed, it is only for professionals studying the Nobel Prize to consult.
According to media reports, Norwegian parliamentarian Marius Nielsen nominated Elon Musk for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, citing him as a "staunch supporter of freedom of speech"; In January, Republican Congressman Claudia Taney nominated former President Trump as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, who had also received the nomination in previous years.
