The Nobel Prize is one of the world's most famous awards which is given to people who have made a big difference in areas like science, literature and peace. It was created over 100 years ago to celebrate ideas that change the world for the better. Whether it’s a breakthrough discovery or a courageous effort for peace, each Nobel Prize winner shows us the power of human potential to make a lasting impact. This award isn’t just about fame; it’s about recognizing those who push boundaries and inspire progress for all of us.
Six Nobel Prizes are awarded every year in different fields - Physiology or medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Economic Science, Literature and Peace work. The laureates receive a diploma, a medal and a Nobel prize amount. This year the prize amount has been set at 11 million Swedish Kronor ( around 9 crore Indian rupees).This year the prizes have been announced between 7 October, 2024 and 11 October, 2024, and one prize was announced on 14 October, 2024.
The recipients of the award in different categories for the year 2024 are as follows:
Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology
The Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology has been awarded to Viktor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation". Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. It is now known that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs.
Gary Ruvkun is a professor at Harvard Medical School whereas Viktor Ambros is a professor at UMass Chan Medical School.
Their journey began in 1990s when they studied the Caenorhabditis Elegans worm during their postgraduate studies in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, a Nobel Prize winner in 2002. With the help of their research, they concluded that this small RNA could control gene expression at a post transcriptional level. Initially their findings were looked upon with skepticism as it was believed that it was an anomaly specific to worms. However, after further research was conducted and studies published, it became clear that microRNA's are a universal mechanism of gene regulation.
Problems in microRNA activity is linked to various diseases like cancer, neurodevelopmental disorders and developmental disorders. Various researches are being conducted to manipulate microRNA pathways as possible treatment options for these diseases.
Nobel Prize in Physics
Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for "foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks".
John Hopfield is a professor Emeritus at Princeton University whereas Hinton is a professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. Hinton is often referred to as the 'Godfather of AI' and he made headlines when he quit Google last year and warned about the dangers of machines outsmarting humans.
John Hopfield created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data. Geoffrey Hinton invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data, and so perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.
Ellen Moons, the chair of the Nobel committee for physics, said: “These artificial neural networks have been used to advance research across physics topics as diverse as particle physics, material science and astrophysics. They have also become part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation.”
Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to David Baker for "computational Protein Design" and John Jumper and Briton Demis Hassabis for " Protein structure prediction".
David Baker is a professor at the University of Washington and Hassabis is the CEO of Google DeepMind where Jumper also works as a senior research scientist.
David Baker has been awarded this prize for creating new kinds of proteins that do not exist in nature and he succeeded in doing so in 2003. Since then he has produced unique proteins with widespread application in vaccinations, Nano materials and tiny sensors.
Jumper and Hassabis developed an AI Model called AlphaFold 2 in 2020. This has helped them to predict the structure of virtually all the proteins identified by researchers. Since a very long time, scientists had been working on the problem of finding the three dimensional structure of a protein from its chemical sequence, which has been solved by this AI model. This research work can help scientists to better understand the antibiotic resistance and create images of enzymes that can decompose plastic.
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024
The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024 has been awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson for "studies of how institutions are formed and affect prosperity”. They have demonstrated the importance of societal institutions for a country’s prosperity. Societies with a poor rule of law and institutions that exploit the population do not generate growth or change for the better.
The Nobel Prize stated in a post on X that, “The laureates’ model for explaining the circumstances under which political institutions are formed and changed has three components. The first is a conflict over how resources are allocated and who holds decision-making power in a society (the elite or the masses).The second is that the masses sometimes have the opportunity to exercise power by mobilizing and threatening the ruling elite; power in a society is thus more than the power to make decisions. The third is the commitment problem, which means that the only alternative is for the elite to hand over decision-making power to the populace.”
Daren and Simon are professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA while James A. Robinson is a professor at University of Chicago, IL, USA.
Some purists of the Nobel Prize believe that the Economics Prize is not a true Nobel Award since it was not mentioned in Alfred Nobel's will. However, it is always presented alongside the other prizes on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Han Kang “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life". She is the first South Korean author and the 18th female to win this prize.
She began her career in 1993 by writing poems for the magazine, Literature and Society and she published her first short story collection, Love of Yeosu, in 1995. Her novel 'The Vegetarian', published in 2007, acted as a turning point in her career. It is a story about a woman named Yeong-Hye who decides to stop eating meat after a series of disturbing dreams. Her seemingly simple choice sparks a series of conflicts with her family, especially her husband and father leading to devastating consequences. In her 2014 novel, 'Human Acts', she wrote about the 1980 Gwangju Uprising in South Korea. The story centers around the violent suppression of a student-led protest against martial law, resulting in a brutal massacre.
Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee said that Han's “empathy for vulnerable, often female, lives is palpable, and reinforced by her metaphorically charged prose,”.
Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize 2024 has been awarded to Japanese Organization Nihon Hidankyo for "its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again".
Nihon Hidankyo, established in 1956, is a Japanese organization comprising survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, known as hibakusha. It has member organizations in all 47 Japanese prefectures, thus representing almost all organized Hibakusha. Hidankyo is cooperating with those organizations in their work for the defense of the living and rights of these people.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized the organization's instrumental role in fostering a global taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, emphasizing the importance of their activism, especially in light of current global tensions and the modernization of nuclear arsenals by powerful nations.
This honor marks the second time a Japanese entity has received the Nobel Peace Prize, following former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato's award in 1974.
Usually the Nobel peace prize attracts the most attention due to the prestige of the candidates that are nominated. This year 286 candidates hade been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - 197 individuals and 89 organizations.
IMAGE CREDITS:
The New York Times
MIT News
India TU News
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge
Google Deepmind
Funds Society
The Atlantic
The Japan Times
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