Announcements week of October 8-12, 2001

Medicine and Physiology: jointly to Leland H. Hartwell (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA), R. Timothy (Tim) Hunt (Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, UK)and Paul M. Nurse (Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, UK)     (Announced Monday, October 9, 2001)

"key regulators of the cell cycle"

Leland Hartwell (born 1939), Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA, is awarded for his discoveries of a specific class of genes that control the cell cycle. One of these genes called "start" was found to have a central role in controlling the first step of each cell cycle. Hartwell also introduced the concept "checkpoint", a valuable aid to understanding the cell cycle.

Paul Nurse (born 1949), Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, identified, cloned and characterized with genetic and molecular methods, one of the key regulators of the cell cycle, CDK (cyclin dependent kinase). He showed that the function of CDK was highly conserved during evolution. CDK drives the cell through the cell cycle by chemical modification (phosphorylation) of other proteins.

Timothy Hunt (born 1943), Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, is awarded for his discovery of cyclins, proteins that regulate the CDK function. He showed that cyclins are degraded periodically at each cell division, a mechanism proved to be of general importance for cell cycle control.

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology 2001, Karolinska Institutet


Physics: jointly to Eric A. Cornell (JILA and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Boulder, Colorado, USA); Carl E. Wieman (JILA and University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA) and Wolfgang Ketterle (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA),
    (Announced Tuesday, October 9, 2001)

"for the achievement of Bose-Einstein condensation in dilute gases of alkali atoms, and for early fundamental studies of the properties of the condensates."

Eric A. Cornell, 39 years, born 1961 in Palo Alto, California (US citizen). PhD 1990 at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge, Massachusetts. Senior scientist at NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), Professor Adjoint, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.
http://jilawww.colorado.edu/bec/

Wolfgang Ketterle, 43 years, born 1957 in Heidelberg, Germany (German citizen, US resident). PhD 1986 at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Garching. Professor of Physics at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Cambridge, Massachusetts.
http://cua.mit.edu/ketterle_group

Carl E. Wieman, 50 years, born 1951 in Corvallis, Oregon (US citizen). PhD 1977 at Stanford University. Professor of Physics at University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado.
http://jilawww.colorado.edu/bec/

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Physics 2000, Swedish Academy of Sciences



NOBEL PRIZE ADDENDUM Concerning last week's item on the 2001 physics prize (Update 560), here are a few references to some of the prominent articles concerning Bose-Einstein condensates published in Physical Review Letters in recent years first lithium BEC, Bradley et al., 28 August 1995; first sodium BEC (Ketterle), Davis et al., 27 November 1995; first hydrogen BEC, Fried et al., 2 November 1998; helium BEC, Pereira Dos Santos et al., 16 April 2001; realization of an atom laser, Mewes et al., 27 January 1997; superfluid properties seen in BEC, Onofrio et al.,11 September 2000; first all-optical BEC, Barrett et al., 2 July 2001.

Source: PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE; The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
Number 561 October 15, 2001 by Phillip F. Schewe, Ben Stein, and James Riordon



Chemistry: one half jointly to William S. Knowles (St Louis, Missouri, USA), and Ryoji Noyori (Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya, Japan),
"for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions"
and the other half to K. Barry Sharpless (the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, USA),
"for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions".
    (Announced Wednesday, October 10, 2001)

William S. Knowles, 84 years, born 1917 (US citizen). PhD 1942 at Columbia University. Previously at Monsanto Company, St Louis, USA. Retired since 1986.

Ryoji Noyori, 63 years, born 1938 Kobe, Japan (Japanese citizen). PhD 1967 at Kyoto University. Since 1972 Professor of Chemistry at Nagoya University and since 2000 Director of the Research Center for Materials Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.
http://www-noyori.os.chem.nagoya-u.ac.jp

K. Barry Sharpless, 60 years, born 1941 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (US citizen). PhD 1968 at Stanford University. Since 1990 W.M. Keck Professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, USA.
http://www.scripps.edu/chem/sharpless/kbs.html

Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2000, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences



Economics: George A. Akerlof (University of California at Berkeley, USA), A. Michael Spence(Stanford University, USA), and Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University, USA)    (Announced Wednesday, October 10, 2001)

"for their analyses of markets with asymmetric information."


Many markets are characterized by asymmetric information: actors on one side of the market have much better information than those on the other. Borrowers know more than lenders about their repayment prospects, managers and boards know more than shareholders about the firm's profitability, and prospective clients know more than insurance companies about their accident risk. During the 1970s, this year's Laureates laid the foundation for a general theory of markets with asymmetric information. Applications have been abundant, ranging from traditional agricultural markets to modern financial markets. The Laureates' contributions form the core of modern information economics.
Source: Press release on the 2001 Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel


George A. Akerlof, 61 years, born 1940 in New Haven, Connecticut (US citizen). PhD from MIT 1966. Has held professorships at Indian Statistical Institute and London School of Economics. Since 1980 Goldman Professor of Economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/akerlof/index.html

A. Michael Spence, 58 years, born 1943 in Montclair, New Jersey (US citizen). PhD from Harvard 1972. Has held professorships at Harvard and the Graduate School of Business, Stanford and has also been Dean at both these universities.
http://gobi.stanford.edu/facultybios/bio.asp?ID=156

Joseph E. Stiglitz, 58 years, born 1943 in Gary, Indiana (US citizen). PhD from MIT 1967. Has held professorships at Yale, Princeton, Oxford and Stanford, and has been the Chief Economist of the World Bank. Since this year, Professor of Economics, Business and International Affairs at Columbia University.

Source: Press release on the 2001 Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel




Literature: V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) Naipaul (British writer, born in Trinidad)     (Announced Thursday, October 11, 2000)

"for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories".

Bibliography (English); also available in Swedish, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, French and German.
Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Literature 2000, Svenska Akademien




Peace: in two equal portions, to the United Nations (U.N.) and to its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.    (Announced Friday, October 12, 2001)

"for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world."
Source: Press release on the Nobel Prize in Peace 2000, Norwegian Nobel Committee

Princeton Ten Previous Nobel Laureates

Physics ('45,'57,'63,'80,'93,'98,'04), Chemistry ('46), Medicine/Physiology('95), Economic Sciences ('79,'94,'02)

Physics 1945

"for the discovery of the Exclusion Principle, also called the Pauli Principle"

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Physics 1957

LEE, TSUNG-DAO, China, Columbia University, New York, NY, U.S.A., b. 1926:

"for their penetrating investigation of the so-called parity laws which has led to important discoveries regarding the elementary particles"

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Physics 1963

WIGNER, EUGENE P., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1902 (in Budapest, Hungary), d. 1995:

"for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles";

and the other half jointly to:

GOEPPERT-MAYER, MARIA, U.S.A., University of California, La Jolla, CA, b. 1906 (in Kattowitz, then Germany), d. 1972; and

JENSEN, J. HANS D., Germany, University of Heidelberg, b. 1907, d. 1973:

"for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure"

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Physics 1980

CRONIN, JAMES, W., U.S.A., University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, b. 1931; and

FITCH, VAL L., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1923:

"for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"

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Physics 1993

HULSE, RUSSELL A., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1950, and

TAYLOR Jr., JOSEPH H., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, b. 1941:

"for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation"

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Physics 1998

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded
The 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to

Professor Robert B. Laughlin, Stanford University, California, USA,
Professor Horst L. Störmer, Columbia University, New York and Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs, New Jersey, USA, and
Professor Daniel C. Tsui, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

The three researchers are being awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of "particles", with charges that are fractions of electron charges.

Citation:
"for their discovery of a new form of quantum fluid with fractionally charged excitations."

Chemistry 1946

SUMNER, JAMES BATCHELLER, U.S.A., Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, b. 1887, d. 1955:

"for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized"

the other half jointly to:

NORTHROP, JOHN HOWARD, U.S.A., Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Princeton, NJ, b. 1891, d. 1987; and

STANLEY, WENDELL MEREDITH, U.S.A., Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, Princeton, NJ, b. 1904, d. 1971:

"for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form"

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Physiology or Medicine 1995

LEWIS, EDWARD B., U.S.A., California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, U.S.A., b. 1918;

NsSSLEIN-VOLHARD, CHRISTIANE, Germany, Max-Planck-Institut f_r Entwicklungsbiologie, T_bingen, Germany, b. 1942; and

WIESCHAUS, ERIC F., U.S.A., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A., b. 1947:

"for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development"

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Economic Sciences 1979

SCHULTZ, THEODORE W., U.S.A., University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, b. 1902 d. 1998: and

LEWIS, Sir ARTHUR, United Kingdom,, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A., b. 1915 (in the West Indies), d. 1991:

"for their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries"

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Economic Sciences 1994

HARSANYI, JOHN C., U.S.A., University of California, Berkeley, CA, b. 1920 (in Budapest, Hungary);

NASH, JOHN F., U.S.A., Princeton University, NJ, b. 1928; and

SELTEN, REINHARD, Germany, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universit,t, Bonn, Germany, b. 1930:

"for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games"

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Economic Sciences 2002

Sources: Nobel Foundation -- www.nobel.se         Nomination and Selection of the Nobel Laureates