The Nobel Laureates 2022 – Chemistry, Physics and Medicine

The Nobel Prize is regarded as one of the greatest honors in human history. Nobelists have been receiving this honor since 1901 for their work-related contributions to developments that have changed people’s lives. The Nobel Prizes are awarded to laureates who have made significant contributions to humankind through inventions or discoveries in their respective domains. To uncover brilliance and choose the deserving Nobel laureates to be honored in each field, many academic bodies are tasked. There are organizations and committees made up of people who are responsible for screening particular Nobel Prize categories. 

Listed below are the Nobel prizes categorized under different domains of science and the laureates presented with this prestigious award in 2022.

Nobel Prize for Medicine or physiology – Svante Pääbo received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2022 “for his discoveries about the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.” The Nobel Assembly’s Secretary-General, Professor Thomas Perlmann, announced the winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on October 3, 2022.

By conducting ground-breaking research, Svante Pääbo was able to sequence the DNA of the extinct Neanderthal, a relative of modern humans.  Pääbo studied the gene flow from the hominins, Denisova to humans. He discovered that about 70,000 years ago during the migration of hominins out of Africa, DNA transfer occurred from the now-extinct hominins to Homo sapiens. Humans today still benefit physiologically from this ancient gene flow because it influences bodily systems such as how our immune systems respond to infections. Paleo-genomics was created as a result of Pääbo’s landmark study. His studies lay the groundwork for investigating what makes us specifically human. It tends to expose genetic variations that set all living humans apart from extinct hominins.

After the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced, Professor Nils-Göran Larsson, the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Medicine or Physiology, spoke with journalist Lotta Fredholm about the winning study. He said that this accomplishment will provide huge insights into human physiology.

 

Nobel Prize in Physics- This award was announced on the 4th of October 2022 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Secretary General, Professor Hans Ellegren announced it. They screened the nominations for this award and accordingly Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger were jointly presented with the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. They were felicitated in recognition of their contributions to quantum information science and their experiments with entangled photons that proved contravention of Bell inequalities. They utilized entangled quantum states where two particles operate as a single entity even after being split apart.

John Clauser expanded John Bell’s theories of Bell inequality. He discovered that a theory that incorporates hidden variables as considered in quantum mechanics, cannot displace quantum mechanics. After John Clauser’s experiment, certain loopholes were still evident, on which Alain Aspect worked by preparing a setup. With the help of his setup, he was able to change the measurement settings after an entangled pair had left its source. This ensured that the existing settings after the pair was released had no bearing on the outcome. Anton Zeilinger, on the other hand, employed entangled quantum states using sophisticated techniques and extensive testing. His research team further proved the existence of a phenomenon known as quantum teleportation. They found that this phenomenon enables the remote transfer of a quantum state from one particle to another.

Lastly, on account of the announcement of the Nobel Prize winners in the Physics department, the Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, Anders Irbäck said, “It has become increasingly clear that a new kind of quantum technology is emerging. We can see that the laureates’ work with entangled states is of great importance, even beyond the fundamental questions about the interpretation of quantum mechanics”.

 

Nobel Prize in Chemistry- Alike the Nobel Prize for Physics, Professor Hans Ellegren, Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, announced the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and K. Barry Sharpless was jointly presented the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022. They were awarded to acknowledge their creation of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry. 

A functional branch of chemistry known as “click chemistry,” in which molecular building elements snap together rapidly and precisely, was established by Barry Sharpless and Morten Meldal. Click chemistry has been expanded by Carolyn Bertozzi, who has begun applying it to living things. Barry Sharpless developed the idea of “click chemistry” in 2000. Soon after, Morten Meldal and Barry Sharpless presented the azide-alkyne cycloaddition independently of one another, which is generally regarded as the pinnacle of click chemistry. Carolyn Bertozzi created click reactions that function inside living beings in order to map crucial but elusive proteins called glycans that are found on the surface of cells. Her bioorthogonal processes happen without interfering with the cell’s regular chemistry. Today, people all over the world employ these reactions to investigate cells and monitor biological processes. Researchers have enhanced the targeting of cancer medications using bioorthogonal processes, which are currently being examined in clinical studies.

In a press release after the 2022 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and its laureates were announced, the Chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, Johan Åqvist said, “This year’s Prize in Chemistry deals with not overcomplicating matters, instead working with what is easy and simple. Functional molecules can be built even by taking a straightforward route”.

 

References:

1. “The Official Website of the Nobel Prize – NobelPrize.org.” NobelPrize.org, 7 Oct. 2022, www.nobelprize.org.