And the Nobel prize for Medicine 2012, goes to...

[User169]

Michael Heseltine it would seem..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19869673

Good to see a Brit get a Nobel. A long wait though; the relevant experiments were carried out in 1962!

 

[User169]

The title should of course say 2012.

 

[Yellow Fang]

Wow, he's got a good head of hair for 79.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

The title should of course say 2012.

He's about to get another for inventing a time machine....

 

[hotmetal]

I love the comment from his teacher on his school report. They said the same about Einstein I think.

 

[Ajay]

He must go to the same barber as Ken Barlow.

 

[marinyork]

Thought 'Brits' won this quite a few times (shared with others) the last few years. Anyway it's a good idea to showcase.

Physics should be up soon.

And 1962? Pah!. The original paper written on what later came to be developed and known as the Higgs along with others were written around that time. So maybe they'll be another prize from the early 60s shared between 3 people.

 

[User169]

Yes, you're right MY; the UK has done pretty well with MoP over the last decade. Also been unlucky a couple of times - Salvador Moncada had a good claim for NO and David Baulcombe could reasonably have got the prize for RNAi. At least Baulcombe got a Lasker.

Gurdon enters at number 3 in my all-time list for MoP prize wins - with Barbara McClintock at no. 1 and Nusslein-Volhard + Wieschaus at no 2.

I wonder how things will change over the coming years - I suppose we can expect to see far more Chinese and Indian winners.

 

[marinyork]

Haroche and Wineland btw for physics and quantum systems. I was watching it and forgot to post.

I would guess that MoP might well go the way of Physics in coming years with an unofficial 'rotation' system and a lot more prizes for 'biotech' applications for want of a better word (not a good description).

 

[thom]

Counting where these type of awards go to is often not so indicative of how a country really is doing in terms of research though.
Certainly in math with the Field's medal(s), there are a whole bunch of very worthy candidates each time with work of similar quality.
The actual award tends to be awarded with a political intent to highlight areas that are important for the subject area to notice and take more seriously. For example an aspect of the medical award here in stem cell research is possibly intended to highlight this area in light of the social attitudes to prohibiting working in this area in the US (speculation on my part).
I think last year the Russian guy working in Manchester who got the physics award for graphene was notable for succeeding in his research despite having multiple EPSRC funding requests denied to him. There was a feeling that this guy was being awarded the prize within the context of declining govt funding in UK sciences in a sense to highlight the quality of UK university resources.

 

[marinyork]

Counting where these type of awards go to is often not so indicative of how a country really is doing in terms of research though.
Certainly in math with the Field's medal(s), there are a whole bunch of very worthy candidates each time with work of similar quality.
The actual award tends to be awarded with a political intent to highlight areas that are important for the subject area to notice and take more seriously. For example an aspect of the medical award here in stem cell research is possibly intended to highlight this area in light of the social attitudes to prohibiting working in this area in the US (speculation on my part).
I think last year the Russian guy working in Manchester who got the physics award for graphene was notable for succeeding in his research despite having multiple EPSRC funding requests denied to him. There was a feeling that this guy was being awarded the prize within the context of declining govt funding in UK sciences in a sense to highlight the quality of UK university resources.

Fields are a different league. Fields have subject biases (which by the way I think are fully justified). However consider this, isn't it a bit weird that many physicists and people interested in particle physics casually or seriously are aware that Ed Witten and Alain Connes won fields medals than actual mathematicians know this? Would this be that likely to happen in another sphere? On the other hand if you told the average brit that although there was a lot of success at winning fields medals for people born in the UK (or alternatively those associated with British universities), a lot of French nationals had won the fields medals there would be huge shock.

Yes, with the Nobels there is political intent for sure. Geim may well have got it partly for that, but the physics has been joked about as the nobel prize for technology for quite a few years and the nobel prize for astronomy and so on. I have no personal problem whatsoever with the award being used to highlight a particular area or idea - that is one of the most important purposes of the award.

 

[User169]

Counting where these type of awards go to is often not so indicative of how a country really is doing in terms of research though.
Certainly in math with the Field's medal(s), there are a whole bunch of very worthy candidates each time with work of similar quality.
The actual award tends to be awarded with a political intent to highlight areas that are important for the subject area to notice and take more seriously. For example an aspect of the medical award here in stem cell research is possibly intended to highlight this area in light of the social attitudes to prohibiting working in this area in the US (speculation on my part).
I think last year the Russian guy working in Manchester who got the physics award for graphene was notable for succeeding in his research despite having multiple EPSRC funding requests denied to him. There was a feeling that this guy was being awarded the prize within the context of declining govt funding in UK sciences in a sense to highlight the quality of UK university resources.

I'm sure there is some political intent, and you do see that in the choices made in relation to this prize, although not perhaps in the way you suggest.

Both winners were looking at the relatively uncontroversial field of dedifferentiating adult cells. Jamie Thompson though has been inexplicably passed over. You'd think that the person who managed to generated the first human embryonic stem cell line would be in with a shout at the prize. If anything, the award committe has endorsed US prohibitions on ESC work, rewarding adult cell work instead (which I don't think has ever been prohibited in the US).

 

[thom]

On the other hand if you told the average brit that although there was a lot of success at winning fields medals for people born in the UK (or alternatively those associated with British universities), a lot of French nationals had won the fields medals there would be huge shock.

Depends on how you define average there ! I suspect the vast majority would not be able to register surprise due to not having a Scooby about what a Fields medal actually is ! I think the feeling has been that Geometry and Topology did get a lot of recognition over the past few decades, partly as a fashion but there have been signs this has evolved.
I do know that French institutions have not compared well for Nobel prizes and Fields medals in comparison to UK ones but that the French math tradition/culture is really rather special and sophisticated.
Ed Whitten is a funny guy - one of the hugest brains out there but with a remarkably amusingly squeeky voice. So you're left with an iota of consolation after one of his talks ;-)

 

[thom]

I'm sure there is some political intent, and you do see that in the choices made in relation to this prize, although not perhaps in the way you suggest.

Yeah I can well believe that - I don't know anything about this area to be honest, merely speculating.

 

[marinyork]

Some of my point Thom. Although the last few years French institutions are kicking our arse in Fields Medals.

Absolutely about Witten, but I was really demonstrating that the most gifted physicist of his generation may never win a Nobel Prize, but has already won a Fields medal, which mostly people interested in string theory know about. And he's fine at explaining things in full flow.