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AN IRISH MAN has today won the Nobel Prize for medicine.
Irish-born William Campbell, Satoshi Omura of Japan and China’s Youyou Tu have won the prize for their discoveries of treatments against parasites, the jury said.
Campbell and Omura shared one-half of the prize for “their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites”, while Tu won the other half “for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against malaria.”
The medicine award kicks off a week of announcements where the most closely-watched award, the Nobel Peace Prize, may well honour work to help refugees to a better life.
Sweden’s newspaper of reference, Dagens Nyheter (DN), said yesterday it believed the prize committees would this year be looking to even out the gender gap among laureates, the vast majority of whom have been men over the years.
“This year the Nobel committees in the science disciplines are headed by women. There are also an unusual number of women’s names circulating in the speculation,” DN wrote.
Guessing who will win the prizes is usually an exercise in futility, but nonetheless speculation runs rife every year just before the big announcements.
The Nobel prizes were created by Swedish philanthropist and scientist Alfred Nobel in his 1895 will, and were first handed out in 1901.
The physics prize will be announced tomorrow.
DN have predicted a woman laureate in that discipline, suggesting US researcher Deborah Jin for her work on ultracold gases. Swedish Radio meanwhile tipped US astronomist Vera Rubin for her pioneering work on galaxy rotation rates.
For the chemistry prize, to be announced on Wednesday, Swedish Radio suggested it could go to US electrochemist John Goodenough, whose research led to rechargeable batteries, or to organic chemist Per Siegbahn of Sweden.
Merkel peace prize?
For the literature prize, the exact date of the announcement is only revealed a few days in advance but it is traditionally announced on a Thursday, so it will likely fall on 8 October.
Last year, the award went to French author Patrick Modiano, and the year before that to Canadian short story writer Alice Munro.
Some of the names circulating this year include Belarussian author Svetlana Alexievich, US novelist Joyce Carol Oates, Japanese author Haruki Murakami, and Nuruddin Farah of Somalia.
On Friday, all eyes and ears will turn to Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize announcement.
The committee may let itself be influenced by current events and give the nod to a person or organisation working to ease the suffering of those escaping war and authoritarian regimes.
“There is really a strong likelihood that it will go to someone helping people fleeing,” Anna Ek, the head of the Swedish pacifist organisation Svenska Freds, told news agency TT.
Here again, another woman has been tipped as the frontrunner: German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for opening her country to asylum seekers in Europe’s recent migrant crisis.
Others mentioned in the same breath include Eritrean Catholic priest Mussie Zerai, who has helped thousands of refugees cross the Mediterranean, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the mayor of the Italian island of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini.
Congolese doctor Denis Mukwege, who has treated thousands of women brutalised by rape in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, has also been mentioned as a possibility, as has Japan’s pacifist Article 9 Association which opposed changes to the country’s defence laws.
The 2015 Nobel season winds up on 12 October with the announcement of the winners of the economics prize.
Only one woman has won the award since it was first handed out in 1969, when it was created by the Swedish Central Bank to celebrate its tricentenary.
If the committee were looking to improve those stats, it could select Americans Claudia Goldin, who has researched inequality, and Anne Krueger, a specialist in free trade and development.
This year’s Nobel laureates will receive eight million Swedish kronor (around $950,000 or €855,000) per award, to be shared if there are several winners in one discipline.
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if the best candidate is a woman, give it to a woman,if the best candidate is a man, give it to a man. end of.
HOW DARE YOU TALK SENSE ON THE JOURNAL! WHAT AM I GOING TO GET OFFENDED BY NOW?
Congratulations to William Campbell and his colleagues.
Irish-born
What does that mean?
Is this to prime Irish minds about people who are born here but are not Irish, thus making the Irish people equivalent to any people from anywhere, and making the idea of being Irish completely meaningless?
First Irish Scientist to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine – and 3/4 of the article is about who might win the peace prize. It says a lot about the role of science in Irish society.
In comparison, the German newspapers have the winners of the Nobel prizes for medicine/physics etc on the front page of the newspapers, and links to the live announcement on their websites. We don’t even honour the only previous Irishman with a Nobel prize for science with a public building or award…
My suspicions were raised on reading the term “…Irish-born scientist”.
He emigrated to the States in 1953 at the age of 23, since where he has lived all of his life.
He did all of his work there for the past 62 years.
What suspicions are they? An Irish born citizen of Ireland won the prize for his work. Emigrating doesn’t make him any less Irish.
he doesn’t have the same rights as an Irish person having lived in the USA for so long, surely he’s integrated into US society after so long.
Integrating into where you live doesnt change the fact he is was born, raised and undertook the majority of his education here. Not to mention that he is a citizen, that has the same rights as any citizen living abroad and when he comes back will have the same rights as any citizen at home.
So what if he’s done all his work outside if Ireland. How does this make him less Irish? I know people who’ve lived most their adult lives outside Ireland but woe betide anyone who dares question their Irishness.
Remember a few years back there was a poll where people could vote on the greatest Irish person who ever lived?
There was controversy when Bono did well in the poll, but none what so ever regarding the fact that not a single scientist appeared on the list of nominations. Not even the father of modern chemistry (Robert Boyle).
It’s a disgraceful reflection of the regard that Ireland has for its talented scientists.
Maybe someone could ask him to which country he feels closest?
The Nobel Peace prize has lost all credibility after Barack Obama received in 2009
….It is written….”he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many”
This is the Nobel Prize for Medicine, or has their work on solving roundworm parasite infections lost credibility by association to the Peace Prize in your opinion?
Barack Obama is a dreadful scientist. I doubt he can even recite the periodic table.
Using ragweeds and wormswood to kill parasites once… I wish they find a cure for politicians lol.
A young Irishwoman discovered the Pulsars.
Her English boss got the Nobel Prize.
When asked why she was not given the credit she said “I’m just mere a Irishwoman to Cambridge professors”
Her name is Jocelyn Bell Burnell.
Like Tommy Flowers invented the first computer which saved England during WW2 but Alan Turing gets the credit because it is a class system in England… Also like Fleming with penicillin but it wasn’t him but a bloke who worked for him that discovered it and took it to Fleming who then got the credit…
An amazing achievement. Unfortunately we only recognise writers and poets in this country. Pretty words are more important to us than saving lives. You achievement will be thrown into the dustbin alongside that of Robert Boyle.
Could a political scientist do anything about the parasite problem in our so called government?
IF ENOUGH PEOPLE JUST WAKEN UP THEN ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE?
Hitler was nominated for the peace prize back in 1939, we all know how that turned out :/
He didn’t win the prize. That’s how it turned out. Then he lost the war and now he’s dead. By the way, this article is about the Science prize.
Hence my word nominated Neal, and most of the article is focused on the peace prize centred on Merkel which brought me back to Hitler…… Obama has won a peace prize he is a war monger not much difference between him and Hitler and Merkel backs him it does not take much to make the correlation I speak about. I apologise that I have to spell it out for some people.
Hitler was nominated by E.G.C. Brandt, a member of the Swedish parliament. It was done as a joke which was withdrawn a few days later. Brandt was an anti-fascist who was peeved at the thought of suggestions of Neville Chamberlain being nominated.
I thought a pigs head and Cameron might get it as that does take weird chemistry to do that lol.
Well done to all three, but I was under the impression that treatiment agnainst intestinal parasites had already been discovered and is already being used in the form of the MMS protocol as developped by Andreas Kalker, also successfully curing regressional Autisim, which it seems is caused by a tape worm infection.
Daily Mail dude.It’s a perfect combination of the two things they love bashing.. immigration and ze Germans…
Each news source is bias in their own way but it is still a truth and always good to know?
‘…fighting a horrible parasite’
Who?. Angela Merkel? ‘Syrian’ refugees?????
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