Nobel Prizes

The following sections are included:

• Preface
• Contents

To be awarded a Nobel Prize implies an enormous gaining of prestige. The recipient becomes included in the exclusive assembly of Nobel laureates, which has now been accumulated over more than one hundred years. Momentarily the recipient becomes a part of history. However, for each new laureate selected in a certain year there is a much larger group of severely disappointed, highly qualified competitors that, with a few exceptions, for various reasons will never be allotted a corresponding place in the limelight. In a few cases they may represent serious omissions by the committees. The reasons for the exclusion obviously will vary between the different cases. This chapter will analyze why Felix d’Herelle, one of the discoverers of viruses infecting bacteria, named bacteriophages, never received a Nobel Prize. He was repeatedly nominated over many years. After all his identification of infectious particles not visualized by the light microscope paved the way for studies that led to important discoveries, cited by two Nobel Prizes. One of these prizes in physiology or medicine in 1965 cited François Jacob, André Lwoff and Jacques Monod “for their discoveries of enzyme and virus synthesis”^III and the other in 1969 Max Delbrück, Alfred D. Hershey and Salvador E. Luria “for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses.” The contributions by the latter three scientists and the long-term influence of their scientific achievements will be discussed at length in the following two chapters of this book.

The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1969 brought together three scientists of exceptionally diverse character — Max Delbrück, Alfred Day Hershey and Salvador Edward Luria. These three founders of the phage school were also referred to as The Phage Church Trinity. In this church they played different roles with Delbrück being the Founder, which together with his ex-cathedra manner made him the Pope, its primus inter pares, Luria being the Priest, Confessor and Hershey, simply the Saint. The phage school was established by the arrangement of courses at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory at Long Island, New York. At these courses the methodologies for working with bacteriophages were taught and the spread of use of this kind of experimental system became decisive in the establishment and development of the field of molecular biology. The prize was based on discoveries made mostly in the mid-1940s through early 1950s. In fact Delbrück had left the field in the early 1950s to become involved in experimental studies in the field of sensory physiology using an organelle of the fungus Phycomyces, the sporangiophore, the stalk carrying the structure producing spores, as the object for examination…

The charm of the 1969 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine is that the three recipients represented such contrasting and high-profile scientists, each one making his own personal imprint on the story of emerging molecular biology. Delbrück and Luria have already been introduced and in this chapter we will get to know about Hershey and his impressive scientific production. Hershey and Delbrück in parallel, but independently, in the mid-1940s demonstrated that genetic material could be exchanged between two bacteriophages infecting the same cell, referred to as genetic recombination. Subsequently Hershey, unlike Delbrück, continued to make decisive discoveries by his experimentation. Hershey stayed at the bench throughout the whole of his career. The major part of the practical work he did himself and he had the assistance of only a few technicians or collaborators. He put in long working hours and was most satisfied when the experiments provided a clear answer to the question asked, a beautiful experiment. It is even said that once he had hit on such an experiment, he was encouraged to repeat it. He referred to them as Hershey Heaven…

The complete identification of the genetic code in 1966, recognized by a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine two years later, was an exceptional keystone in the rapidly advancing field of molecular biology. The success in breaking the genetic code had the immediate logical consequence of attempting to develop techniques that made it possible to read the books of life. Within somewhat more than a decade this was achieved^III. The opportunity to interpret a gene at the level of individual nucleotides dramatically changed the approach to biology. Another obvious goal set in the 1970s was to develop an understanding of how the expression of a particular gene was managed and coordinated with that of other genes in the genome. Viruses for obvious reasons remained attractive and manageable systems for the continued studies of this kind. The haploid bacteria offered excellent conditions for extended analysis of infections with different kinds of bacteriophages also in a situation when the host cell was not destroyed but instead the virus genome was integrated into the bacterial genome, the establishment of lysogeny. It became understood that such an interaction could have a neutral influence on the future of the bacterium, but it could also mean that it acquired new properties of potential value for its survival…

The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901. During the first 25 years of selecting Nobel Prizes in the natural sciences the scene was dominated by researchers from Germany. About half of the prize recipients in these disciplines had their origin in this country. During the time span including the two World Wars the national representation among prize recipients changed markedly. The United States expanded its scientific research to become the dominant Nobel Prize recipient in the natural sciences. Gradually after the Second World War the percentage of prizes in physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine awarded to U.S. scientists approached about 70 percent. These dramatic developments were remarked on in my first book on Nobel Prizes^I. In the same book it was also noted that there is an impressive overrepresentation of scientists of Jewish origin among laureates in these disciplines. The representation of recipients with this ethnic background in the three disciplines of physics, chemistry and physiology or medicine was about 25, 16 and 25 percent. These figures should be compared with the percentage of Jews in the U.S., about 2 percent, and also globally, about 0.25 percent. With reference to the latter figure the relative overrepresentation of Jews globally among Nobel Prize recipients in science is about a hundredfold! The reasons for this impressive dominance has been the subject of many discussions. It remains to be explained and it is a recurrent theme in the present book and in my previous books on Nobel Prizes^II–IV. The remarkable influence of Jews in science came to be of major importance when Hitler at the end of January 1933 took over as Reichskanzler and made the Weimar Republic a part of history. A critical drive in this major political shift was anti-Semitism. Because of the overrepresentation of Jews among scientists this had dramatic consequences. A major proportion of frontline scientists were forced to leave Germany, as described in the book Hitler’s Gift to the Free World.

The Nobel Prizes awarded in 1970 had a particularly Swedish national flavor. The prize in physiology or medicine included Ulf von Euler, a professor of physiology at the Karolinska Institute. He shared the prize with Bernard Katz from the United Kingdom and Julius Axelrod from the United States. The prize citation was “for their discoveries concerning the humoral transmitters in the nerve terminals and the mechanisms for their storage, release and inactivation.” The 1970 prizes also included another Swede, Hannes O. G. Alfvén, who shared the prize in physics with Louis E. F. Néel “for fundamental work and discoveries in magnetohydrodynamics with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physics.” Von Euler was the third professor at the Karolinska Institute to receive a Nobel Prize, after Hugo Theorell and Ragnar Granit who in 1955 and 1967 had been awarded an undivided and shared prize in physiology or medicine, respectively^III,IV. For the sake of completeness it should be mentioned that a prize in physiology or medicine had been given to a Swede already in 1911, as described briefly earlier^II. This prize recognized Allvar Gullstrand, a professor of ophthalmology at Uppsala University. He was recognized “for his work on the dioptrics of the eye.” Later he became very much engaged in the Nobel Prize work at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, serving on the prize committee for physics. He had his strength in mathematics and used this qualification in the committee to block early attempts to bestow a Nobel Prize on Albert Einstein, whose theories he was critical of…

During the 1950s and 1960s there were rapid advances in the fields of neurobiology and neuropharmacology. New technologies were developed and new insights into the chemical nature of the critical operative molecules in the peripheral nervous system and in the brain were gained. The insights gained had a major impact on the care for patients with severe mental illnesses. A change from institutional to ambulatory care became possible as we shall see. Axelrod and colleagues at the NIH developed to become central actors in this powerful growth of knowledge. He advanced not only to become technically skilled but he also learned how to ask the right, often simple and straightforward questions, and to provide significant answers to them…

The combination of Nobel Prize recipients in physiology or medicine in 1970 is exceptional in that it is an obvious construct by the Nobel Committee. There was no proposal by any external nominator to combine Katz, von Euler and Axelrod. As can be seen in the two previous chapters and in the present chapter each one of them was nominated alone or in various combinations with other candidates. Furthermore they were reviewed independently or occasionally in a combination of two, sometimes in a pair with one of the future co-recipients of the prize. There is no review of the three of them together. When the prize was announced and when they were introduced at the prize ceremony they were not listed in alphabetic order, which naturally is the most often used form of presentation. Katz was mentioned first because his discovery was in a different context and of an earlier date. He had already been seriously considered for the 1963 prize to be combined with Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley, but eventually John Eccles was chosen, as already shown at length^III. Katz was put on the backburner. It was probably an important factor that he was eight years younger than Eccles, but it can be noted that he was also six years younger than von Euler. Fortunately Eccles remained a frequent nominator of Katz during the years to come…

In 1971 there were a small number of prize recipients on the stage of the Concert Hall in Stockholm at the Nobel Prize ceremony. Dennis Gabor, Great Britain, received the prize in physics “for his invention and development of the holographic method,” Gerhard Herzberg, Canada, the prize in chemistry “for his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals,” Earl W. Sutherland, United States, the prize in physiology or medicine, “for his discovery concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones” and finally Pablo Neruda, Chile, “for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent’s destiny and dreams.” King Gustaf VI Adolf presented the prizes on this occasion, but it turned out to be the last time he was able to fulfil this function. The core part of the early half of this chapter concerns Sutherland’s pioneering work that led to his Nobel Prize but by way of introduction a broad presentation of his mentor institution will be given first. This was Carl and Gerty Cori’s laboratory at Washington University, St. Louis, IL, which offered a unique high class science environment that inspired him and many others to become successful scientists…

The following sections are included:

• References
• Index