Latest news today – Nobel Medicine 2020 nominees … Arabs may...

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announces the name of the Nobel Prize winner for medicine, on Monday, in one of the most different versions that coincides with the outbreak of the “Covid-19” virus, the worst pandemic the world has seen in at least a century.

Despite the difficulty of guessing the names that might hijack the award in light of the state of secrecy imposed by the Swedish Academy and the complete secrecy surrounding the work of the award committees, some specialized websites issued some scholars as candidates to win based on their research that caused breakthroughs in the field of disease discovery and treatment.

Some sites predict nominees based on scientists who have won so-called “prediction awards”, such as the “Lasker” awards for medical sciences, while others analyze fields of study preferred by the Nobel Committee, and count the number of years that pass before a particular field is honored.

Only 5 fields out of 114 different scientific majors represent more than half of the Nobel Prizes awarded since 1995 to 2017, according to a recent analysis: particle physics, atomic physics, cell biology, neuroscience, and molecular chemistry.

Cancer research

According to the “Bangkok Post” website, the most prominent candidates for whom the Swedish public broadcaster SR “and the country’s largest daily” Dagens Nyheter “expected that the medicine award would go to them: French-born Australian Jack Miller, and Max Cooper from the United States.

The site stated that “Miller and Cooper” were two researchers who succeeded in discovering T cells and B cells in the 1960s, which led to huge developments in cancer and virus research, indicating that they won the prestigious “Lasker” prize in the United States in 2019, and also among the candidates for the geneticist Lebanese-born American, Hoda Zogby; She discovered a genetic mutation that leads to the brain disorder Rett syndrome, a rare inherited neurological disorder that occurs primarily in girls.

Hoda Zogby was awarded the National Cedar Medal in recognition of the richness of her scientific and educational research. She was also crowned with the “Breakthrough PrizE” award, which is awarded annually in the United States to the most important scientists for their research in physics, life sciences and mathematics. The award is also described as the Oscar of Science and one of the most important international awards after the Nobel Prize.

The third name is the American Marie Claire King, who discovered the “BRCA1” gene responsible for the genetic form of breast cancer, and in fourth place the researchers who worked on treating hepatitis C and they are Ralph Partenschlager from Germany, and the Americans Charles Rice and Michael Sophia, a trio who also won an award. “Lasker” in 2016.

Two names have also been mentioned frequently, Emmanuel Charpentier from France and Jennifer Dodna from the United States, for their gene-editing technology known as “CRISPR-Cas9”, a type of genetic “clipper” used to cut a mutated gene in a human embryo and replace it with a corrected copy. .

The site also mentioned that among the candidates are also immunologist Mark Feldman from Australia, British-born British researcher Ravinder Maine, to work on rheumatoid arthritis, and American oncologist Dennis Salamon to search for breast cancer and drug treatment Herceptin.

Old achievements

The American (CNN) website said that the shortlist is classified, as are the candidates, explaining that documents revealing exciting details about the selection remain secret for 50 years after the announcement.

He stated that the Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry and Medicine are the pinnacle of scientific achievement, and are intended to honor great minds and life-changing discoveries.

He believed that the scientific awards tend to honor the achievements that have stood the test of time, noting that last year’s award in research chemistry was in developing lithium batteries from the 1980s, which included honoring the oldest winner ever.

Corona pandemic

The “Covid-19” virus pandemic has shone the global spotlight on research this year, yet it is not expected that any prizes will be awarded for work directly related to the new Corona virus during 2020, as the Nobel Prize-winning research takes many years to be verified.

“The epidemic is a great crisis for humankind, but it shows just how important science is,” said Lars Hickenston, president of the Nobel Foundation.

Meanwhile, Erling Norby, former permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that awards science awards, told AFP that the awarding committees are not affected in any way by what is happening in the world at that time.

He added, “Norby” virologist: “It takes time before the award matures, I would like to say at least 10 years before you can fully understand the impact of the discovery.”