Treatments for narcolepsy and cancer? Messenger RNA vaccines? The Nobel Prize for medicine opens the season of these famous awards on Monday, in a context marked by strong international tensions, informs AFP.
Nobel Center in OsloPhoto: Shutterstock
Who will be rewarded for the “benefit to humanity”, the motto established by the creator of the awards, the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), in the field of medicine and physiology? The answer will be known around 09:30 GMT (12:30 Romanian time).
This award has crowned major discoveries throughout history, such as X-rays, penicillin, insulin and DNA, but also the lobotomy and the DDT insecticide, currently out of favor.
Who are the favorites and what treatments have they discovered?
Research into narcolepsy and, in particular, the key role of a molecule called orexin in this sleep disorder could be rewarded, according to several experts, who cite French researcher Emmanuel Mignot and Japanese Masashi Yanagisawa for the medical breakthroughs.
The prize could also go to Hungarian Katalin Kariko and American Drew Weissman, messenger RNA vaccine pioneers who paved the way for the discovery of vaccines against COVID-19.
Their discovery has already brought them numerous prizes, but the Nobel Committee frequently waits several decades before rewarding a discovery considered decisive.
“The Nobel Academy may consider that they still need to study the subject, but they should win this prize one day,” estimated a science specialist, Annika Ostman, in an interview given to Swedish public radio (SR ).
Annika Ostman, however, bets for this year on the discovery of an American biologist, Kevan M. Shokat, in the field of research aimed at methods of blocking the KRAS gene, whose mutations appear in a third of all cancers, including lung, colon and tumors the pancreas.
A new form of therapy, called CAR-T, which allows immune system cells to be programmed to fight cancer or research into the human microbiota is also among the breakthroughs under consideration, according to David Pendlebury, director of Clarivate, an institute specializing in predicting Nobel prize winners.
“There are more people who deserve a Nobel than there are Nobels to be awarded,” he declared.
Synthetic biology could also be rewarded by the discoveries of American biologists Stanislas Leibler and Michael Elowitz regarding the design of synthetic genetic circuits, says Lars Brostrom, another specialized researcher, quoted by SR radio.
Synthetic biology aims to develop new systems inspired by natural metabolic circuits.
But this field of research also raises controversies and “raises ethical questions about the limits that should not be violated in the creation of life”, said Lars Brostrom.
As for the Nobel Prize in Physics, to be announced on Monday, the properties of twisted graphene or the observation of IceCube neutrinos in Antarctica are among the areas in focus, as well as the development of high-density data storage in the spintronic field, which exploits the property electron spin quantum.
Medicine is only the first of the Nobel Prize season
As for Wednesday’s Nobel in chemistry, the director of the Clarivate Institute predicts that next-generation DNA sequencing could be rewarded.
Lars Brostrom, quoted by radio station NR, points to US-based biologist Omar Yaghi and his research on metal-organic frameworks (MORs) and their porous properties that allow the absorption of dangerous gases, “an important field for the future”. especially for the environment.
Among the names returning in the race to win the Nobel Prize for literature, which will be awarded on Thursday, are cited the Russian writer and dissident Ludmila Uliţkaia, the avant-garde Chinese writer Can Xue, as well as Salman Rushdie, the famous British writer targeted by a fatwa.
The shadow of the war in Ukraine and a fragmented international community hangs over the Nobel Peace Prize, a flagship prize whose winner will be announced in Oslo on Friday.
Some are advocating for Iranian women who are protesting to express their anger – and some of them have given up the Islamic veil – after the death of the young Mahsa Amini, who died in September 2022.
Others propose rewarding those who investigate war crimes committed in Ukraine.
“I think the field of climate change would be an excellent choice for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize,” said the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Dan Smith.
The economics prize will close this year’s Nobel season on October 9. (Agerpress)
