Nobel Committee

Feinstein Institutes’ Dr. Kevin J. Tracey receives 2023 Hans Wigzell Research Foundation's Science Prize

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, November 2, 2023

The Hans Wigzell Research Foundation today announced that Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research , is the recipient of the 2023 Hans Wigzell Research Foundation’s Science Prize in recognition of his significant contributions to the fields of neuroscience and neuroimmunology.

Key Points: 
  • The Hans Wigzell Research Foundation today announced that Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research , is the recipient of the 2023 Hans Wigzell Research Foundation’s Science Prize in recognition of his significant contributions to the fields of neuroscience and neuroimmunology.
  • Dr. Tracey will travel to Stockholm, Sweden, to receive the prize, which includes $100,000, and deliver a lecture on December 1.
  • View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231102553265/en/
    Dr. Kevin J. Tracey has been named awardee of the 2023 Hans Wigzell Research Foundation's Science Prize.
  • “The prize is given to Dr. Tracey for his innovative discoveries of the mechanisms of how nerves transmit signals to stop inflammatory diseases,” said Hans Wigzell, MD, PhD, on behalf of the Hans Wigzell Research Foundation.

Louise Glück honed her poetic voice across a lifetime to speak to us from beyond the grave

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Eliot in 1948.

Key Points: 
  • Eliot in 1948.
  • But her win was far less surprising to those who know and love her work, and who now mourn her loss.
  • Her lyric voice still reverberates after her death, in part because of how consistently she turned her attention to questions of mortality.

A cruel clarity of vision

    • Before being awarded the Nobel Prize, Glück won the National Book Award for “Faithful and Virtuous Night” in 2014 and the Pulitzer Prize for “Wild Iris” in 1992, among other accolades.
    • It can have an icy abruptness; she often writes speakers who have a cruel clarity of vision.
    • In her poem “Mock Orange” she writes:
      It is not the moon, I tell you.
    • It may be surprising, then, how strongly readers have responded to her still, spare, often quietly devastating work.

Ancient voices speaking to the everyday

    • She brought ancient figures down to a human level by exploring everyday dramas through their voices.
    • She wrote often of families and the ways they fail each other, though slantingly, as when Glück explores strained dynamics between mothers and daughters via the Greek goddesses Demeter and Persephone.
    • In “Vita Nova,” the way we fail those we love is explored via the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Contact even at a distance

    • A book of poems written after a paralyzing period of writer’s block, it is the voice of flowers, of prayers, of the soul beyond death and of God speaking back through her poems.
    • In the end, it was this carefully crafted, piercing observation of what is core to our human struggle that continues to animate Glück’s work for so many.
    • If ever a poetic voice was honed across a lifetime to speak to us from beyond the grave, it’s Glück’s.

The Nobel Peace Prize offers no guarantee its winners actually create peace, or make it last

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, October 4, 2023

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is set to announce the recipient of the annual Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 6, 2023, drawing from a pool of 351 nominees.

Key Points: 
  • The Norwegian Nobel Committee is set to announce the recipient of the annual Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 6, 2023, drawing from a pool of 351 nominees.
  • But given the track record of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, I always feel some dread before the peace prize announcement.
  • Will the award celebrate a true peace builder, or a politician that just happened to sign a peace agreement?

A mixed history

    • South African politician Nelson Mandela, for example, won the prize in 1993 for his work to help end apartheid.
    • Despite the prize’s mixed track record – and despite calls by some to stop giving the award – I think the Nobel Peace Prize should continue.

The prize can be off-mark

    • The Nobel Committee, in my view, does not always give the peace prize to people who actually deserve the recognition.
    • And the prize is not a precursor to peace actually happening, or lasting.
    • Some previous awardees are head-scratchers, for peace experts and casual observers and recipients alike.
    • For example, former President Barack Obama said that he was even surprised by the award when he won it in 2009.

Peace is long term

    • In contrast, American diplomat Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for negotiating a cease-fire in Vietnam that same year.
    • The Nobel committee tends to award prizes to those involved in current events and doesn’t award prizes long after those events have happened.
    • But some awards have stood the test of time, in part because they were given to individuals following long struggles.

It’s about peace

    • Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel – the founder of the Nobel awards – said the Nobel Peace Prize should go to the person “who has done the most or best to advance fellowship among nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment and promotion of peace congresses.” The language is somewhat archaic, but the message is clear – the peace prize was designed to be about stopping war and promoting peace.
    • In my view, there are more than enough problems and deadly conflicts in the world whose solutions merit the award of the Nobel Peace Prize as a reflection of its original intent – to acknowledge attempts aimed at ending the scourge of war and building a sustainable peace.

Just 3 Nobel Prizes cover all of science – how research is done today poses a challenge for these prestigious awards

Retrieved on: 
Friday, September 29, 2023

Today, and for the past 15 years, I’m a full-time historian of chemistry.

Key Points: 
  • Today, and for the past 15 years, I’m a full-time historian of chemistry.
  • Every October, when the announcements are made of that year’s Nobel laureates, I examine the results as a chemist.
  • And all too often, I share the same response as many of my fellow chemists: “Who are they?
  • I am not suggesting that these Nobel laureates are undeserving – quite the opposite.
  • What does this trend reveal about the Nobel Foundation and its award strategies in response to the growth of science?

A gradual evolution in the Nobel Prizes

    • Several years ago, chemist-historian-applied mathematician Guillermo Restrepo and I collaborated to study the relationship of scientific discipline to the Nobel Prize.
    • Each year, the Nobel Committee for chemistry studies the nominations and proposes the recipients of the Nobel Prize in chemistry to its parent organization, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which ultimately selects the Nobel laureates in chemistry (and physics).
    • We found a strong correlation between the disciplines of the members of the committee and the disciplines of the awardees themselves.
    • Restrepo and I concluded: As go the expertise, interests and the disciplines of the committee members, so go the disciplines honored by the Nobel Prizes in chemistry.

Not letting labels be limiting

    • And so, chemists do mind that the Nobel Prize in chemistry has morphed into the Nobel Prize in chemistry and the life sciences.
    • Since the Nobel Prizes were first awarded in 1901, the community of scientists and the number of scientific disciplines have grown tremendously.
    • Even chemistry as a discipline has grown dramatically, pushing outward its own scholarly boundaries, and chemistry’s achievements continue to be astounding.
    • And there just are not enough Nobel Prizes to go around to all the deserving.

Mats Danielsson receives the Hans Wigzell Research Foundation's science prize amounting to SEK 925,000.

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, December 8, 2022

STOCKHOLM, Dec. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hans Wigzell's Research Foundation awards its annual scientific prize, to Professor Mats Danielsson at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

Key Points: 
  • STOCKHOLM, Dec. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The Hans Wigzell's Research Foundation awards its annual scientific prize, to Professor Mats Danielsson at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
  • Professor Mats Danielsson receives the prize of SEK 925,000 for his research around medical imaging technology, a technology that can enable earlier diagnosis of cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
  • Mats Danielsson leads a research group at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in physics of medical imaging.
  • Mats Danielsson has a background as a particle physicist and wrote his dissertation on a thesis based on research at CERN.

Tevogen Bio® Expresses Gratitude for 2023 Nobel Peace Prize Nomination of the Company and its Founding CEO Ryan Saadi in Recognition of its Novel Business Model to Alleviate Health Inequality

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, October 12, 2022

The company and its founding CEO, Dr. Ryan Saadi , were nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Curtis Patton , Professor Emeritus, Yale School of Public Health , Yale University for their work towards alleviating health inequality.

Key Points: 
  • The company and its founding CEO, Dr. Ryan Saadi , were nominated for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Curtis Patton , Professor Emeritus, Yale School of Public Health , Yale University for their work towards alleviating health inequality.
  • View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221012005798/en/
    Curtis Patton, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Yale School of Public Health, nominates Tevogen Bio and Founding CEO, Dr. Ryan Saadi, for 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.
  • (Photo: Business Wire)
    After submitting the letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Dr. Patton informed Dr. Saadi and select U.S. and international news outlets of the nomination.
  • We are honored and humbled by the news that Tevogen Bio has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Saadi said.

Gonçalo Castelo-Branco receives the Hans Wigzell Research Foundation's science prize amounting to SEK 925,000

Retrieved on: 
Friday, September 16, 2022

STOCKHOLM, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --The Hans Wigzell Research Foundation (Hans Wigzells Forskningsstiftelse) awards its annual scientific prize to Professor Gonalo Castelo-Branco at Karolinska Institutet (KI).

Key Points: 
  • STOCKHOLM, Sept. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --The Hans Wigzell Research Foundation (Hans Wigzells Forskningsstiftelse) awards its annual scientific prize to Professor Gonalo Castelo-Branco at Karolinska Institutet (KI).
  • Professor Gonalo Castelo-Branco receives the prize of SEK 925,000 for his important research around oligodendrocytes a cell type which plays important roles in relation to how the human brain develops and functions.
  • In his research, Professor Castelo-Branco has shown how a cell's DNA can be controlled to develop into an oligodendrocyte.
  • His research has already helped build a better understanding of multiple sclerosis (MS) and can hopefully also lead to improved therapy against this difficult disease.

World Stars of Physics Light up Florence

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, September 7, 2022

Key Points: 
  • View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220906005326/en/
    G.Mourou, O.Svelto and P.Salvadeo special guest stars at El.En.
  • Prof. Svelto invented the so-called hollow fiber compressor making it possible to achieve laser impulses lasting attoseconds, with previously unimaginable peak power.
  • This system is currently used in many laboratories the world over conducting cutting edge scientific research and non-linear spectroscopy.
  • Its an honor and I take great pride in being able to create and maintain a deep connection between the world of academics and industry.

29th Napa Pain Conference Hosts World-Renowned Scientists and Leaders

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Dr. Katalin Karik, co-inventor of the modified mRNA technology used in vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection, keynotes the Napa Pain Conference

Key Points: 
  • Dr. Katalin Karik, co-inventor of the modified mRNA technology used in vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection, keynotes the Napa Pain Conference
    NAPA, Calif., Aug. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Approximately 600 top scientists, interventional pain physicians, policy-makers, researchers and innovators gathered to attend the 29th Napa Pain Conference ( NPC) in downtown Napa.
  • The Napa Pain Conference, a division of Neurovations, has a long history of creating inclusive, equitable, and bias-free programs to educate clinicians on remarkable clinical and scientific advances for pain and neurologic disease.
  • The program spanned 4 days and included a day specifically focused on cancer pain in partnership with the Cancer Pain Research Consortium.
  • The Napa Pain Conference now has almost three decades of innovation.

JA Worldwide Nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize; Junior Achievement USA Celebrates this Prestigious Honor

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, February 3, 2022

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Junior Achievement USA announced that JA Worldwide, which represents all Junior Achievement organizations globally, has been nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.

Key Points: 
  • COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Feb. 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Junior Achievement USA announced that JA Worldwide, which represents all Junior Achievement organizations globally, has been nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.
  • By economically empowering youth on all continents, JA serves a conduit for peace.
  • "Peace and prosperity go hand-in-hand," said Jack E. Kosakowski, President and CEO of Junior Achievement USA.
  • Junior Achievement USA is a member of JA Worldwide.