Nobel Prize Winners of 2016 Announced

The Nobel Laureates for Medicine, Chemistry and Physics 2016 have been announced this week in Stockholm. Read on to find out more about this year’s Laureates and their research.

Medicine: Mechanisms of Autophagy

Yoshinori Ohsumi, (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) received the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2016 for “his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy". Ohsumi discovered and elucidated mechanisms underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components.

Ohsumi started his own laboratory in 1988 and focused his research efforts on protein degradation in the vacuole of yeast cells, which are analogous to the lysosomes of human cells. In a ground breaking experiment which was published in 1992, the degradation process in the vacuole of yeast cells was disrupted, allowing autophagosomes to accumulate and to be observed under the microscope. Ohsumi went on to use these engineered yeast strains to identify the genes that were vital for autophagy, such as the ATG genes.

The work of Ohsumi and others in the field has led to increased understanding and discoveries of human diseases such as Parkinson’s, type 2 diabetes and cancer.

Chemistry: Molecular Machines

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was jointly award to Jean-Pierre Sauvage (University of Strasbourg, France), Sir J. Fraser Stoddart (Northwestern University, USA) and Bernard L. Feringa (University of Groningen, the Netherlands) for “the design and synthesis of molecular machines”.

Together they have developed molecules with controllable movements that can perform tasks and are effectively miniaturized machines.

Pierre Sauvage made the first steps towards the development of these molecules in 1983 when he created a chain from two ring-shaped molecules. The molecules were linked by a mechanical bond, allowing them free movement relative to each other. Then, in 1991, Stoddart built on this research by creating a ‘molecular axle’ on which a molecular ring was threaded, enabling the development of molecular muscle and molecule-based computer chips. Finally, in 1999, Feringa designed the first molecular motor which was effective enough to rotate objects up to 10,000 times its size.

Molecular machines open up a world of possibilities across a range of scientific fields. In the future in they might be used in new materials, sensors and energy storage systems.

Physics: Topological Phases of Matter

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 was jointly awarded to David J. Thouless (University of Washington, USA), F. Duncan M. Haldane (Princeton University, USA) and J. Michael Kosterlitz (Brown University, USA). The prize was awarded for their “theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”. All three Laureates used topology, a branch of advanced mathematics, which describes properties that only change step-wise, to study unusual phases of matter, such as superconductors, superfluids or thin magnetic films.

In the 1970s, Kosterlitz and Thouless overturned the theory that superconductivity could not occur in thin layer and explained the mechanism of phase transition that prevents superconductivity from occurring at high temperatures. At around the same time Haldane used topological concepts to understand the properties of chains of small magnets, which are found in some materials.

It is hoped in the future that topological materials could be used in new generations of electronics, superconductors and even in quantum computers.