NOBEL PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
One of the biggest and most prestigious prizes on the planet, it is an appreciation of commendable work done in the fields of sciences, literature, economics, and peace. The announcement of the results started from the last week i.e. on 5th October and ended exactly one week later on 12th October 2020. This year’s celebration will be mostly done digitally due to the ongoing pandemic. The prize money was also increased this year to 10 million Swedish krona, a million more than the last year.
The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton, and Charles M. Rice. They were jointly awarded for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Harvey is affiliated to the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. Michael is affiliated to the University of Alberta, Canada. Charles is affiliated to Rockefeller University, New York.
What is Hepatitis C? – According to the World Health Organisation, it is a liver disease caused by the hepatitis C virus. It can range from mild illness for a few weeks to lifelong illness. Through the latest data of the organisation almost 71 million people are infected by this virus and in the year 2016 only almost 399000 died from this. There is no effective vaccine for this but due to constant developments and research on this virus, millions of lives were saved.
The Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded for two discoveries hence the prize was also divided into two parts, one part was awarded to Roger Penrose for the discovery of black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity. The second half was awarded to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez jointly for the discovery of a supermassive compact object in our universe. Roger is affiliated with the University of Oxford. Reinhard is affiliated to the University of California and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial, Germany. Andrea is affiliated with the University of California.
The Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for developing a method for genome editing. Emmanuelle is affiliated to Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens, Germany. Jennifer is affiliated with the University of California.
What is Genome Editing? – It is a process of making certain specific changes to the DNA of a cell/organism. A cut is made by an enzyme on DNA at a specific sequence. When this cut is repaired by the cell then the change/edit is done to the sequence.
The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to American Poet Louise Gluck. Her poetries made the lives of Individuals more beautiful and the essence behind those poems led to a remarkable stance to the beautiful world of poems.
Some of the remarkable works of Louise Gluck are The House on Marshland, Wild Iris, Averno, and Faithful and Virtuous Night.
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to World Food Programme for its initiatives and efforts to tackle hunger and to restructuring the conditions in war or conflict-affected areas through food security to them.
What is the World Food Programme? – It is an initiative or a part of the United Nations, the world’s biggest humanitarian organisation for food assistance and food security. It has helped in 88 nations and in the year 2019 alone it assisted 97 million people. Every year rations in the number of billions are distributed to tackle hunger and to provide assistance to those in need or those who are capable to get food in war/conflict-affected areas.
The Noble Prize for Economics or also known as The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson for the improvement done to auction theory an introduction and discovery of new auction formats. Both of them are affiliated to Stanford University.
Every year people from different backgrounds, ages, fields, and nations are awarded this prestigious prize. This is a token of appreciation for the continuous work and research done by them for years. They contribute a huge part of their life to make our lives easier and to examine and explore more and more about the world and its mysteries.
Submitted by –
Bibhanshu Mishra
Student Reporter, INBA