Text｜Liu Muyun Special researcher of China (Shenzhen) Institute of Comprehensive Development, Director of the National Engineering Research Center for Key Common Technologies in the Cell Industry, and a local leading talent in Shenzhen. Doctor of Science
is the annual Nobel Prize prediction and announcement week. Who will receive a call from Stockholm ?
According to the selection and announcement rules of the Nobel Prize, the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine will be announced on the 3rd of this year's National Day holiday, the Physics Prize will be announced on the 4th, and the Chemistry Prize will be announced on the 5th. Due to the "secret nature" of the Nobel Prize selection mechanism, the results of its nomination and voting must be kept confidential for 50 years before they can be made public, making the annual Nobel Prize prediction challenging. Therefore, the closer the award is to the award, the Nobel Prize prediction will enter a stage of full swing.
Based on previous public opinion surveys, statistical analysis of other scientific award winners, and comprehensive analysis of data such as citation rates of research literature, the following research results and scientists may be shortlisted for the 2022 Nobel Prize : scientists who clarify how cells produce energy, scientists who discover the mechanism of dialogue between bacterial chemicals, scientists who start the gene era, and scientists who study mRNA vaccines against Covid-19.
In order to make the prediction itself seem less "metaphysical" and to be more scientific, it can add a little fun to the third Nobel Prize Awards Week after the epidemic, I am also happy.
1. Physiological or Medical Prize
peer citation rate of major research papers. Someone once accurately predicted 64 winners after 2002 by analyzing the "citation crown".
According to this indicator, this year's medical award may be awarded to scientists who study "different types of malformed proteins gather in different types of cells, which can trigger some neurological diseases such as Parkinson's, ALS and frontotemporal dementia." For example, Man-Yee Lee of Penn University published research results in 2006 and has been cited 4,000 times so far. Subsequently, Masato Hasegawa from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science) also published research results in the same field, and the study also obtained a high number of citations. This similar scientific discovery obtained by independent research at the same time is very common in scientific research, so the citation rate of first-posters will be higher than that of later-posters. The higher citation rate of first-posters can be seen as a reward and incentive for innovative pioneers to bear the "innovation burden". It is precisely because of the research results of the two scientists that great progress has been made in the treatment of neurological diseases caused by malformed proteins.
also meets the above criteria, and two scientists who have studied the "genetic basis of disease" and obtained major scientific discoveries. One is Mary-Claire King from the University of Washington, revealing the role of BRCA gene mutations in breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and completely changing tumor screening; the other is Stuart Orkin from Harvard Medical School, discovered genetic changes in different types of thalassemia, bringing a new method to change the treatment paradigm for hereditary blood diseases - gene therapy.
professional cycle. When the review committee selects the winner, it will show a certain periodicity of professional choice. For example, the winning cycle of neuroscience , cancer science, or infectious disease research is almost a rotation of 10 years. The same is true for medical awards. It will choose between basic molecular biology and treatment methods/drug research, and show periodicity.
In the past 10 years, the medical award has been given more to scientists in the field of basic research, such as intracellular transport in 2013, cell autophagy in 2016, gene clocks that control circadian rhythms in 2017, 2019 cells’ perception and adaptation to the oxygen supply, and how cells sense temperature and touch last year. Only the 2015 and 2018 awards were awarded to the clinical research field, the 2015 roundworm and malaria treatment, 2018 tumor immunotherapy , and the 2020 hepatitis C treatment.
According to the professional cycle, this year may be a medical research field, such as Katalin Karikó of BioNTech and Drew Weissman of Drew Weissman of cell biology, through 40 years of research, vaccine technologies that prevent the pandemic were discovered from a little-known field of cell biology. To date, billions of doses of mRNA vaccine have been used to fight the pandemic and saved millions of lives.
winning the Lasker Award and Gairdner Award, especially scientists who won both awards at the same time.
However, the aforementioned Karikó and Weissman, who studied mMRA, also won other awards, such as the Horwitz Award, Wolf Award, Albany Award, Shaw Award, or Breakthrough Award. Therefore, it is no suspense to win the Nobel Prize in mRNA, but it is a question of whether it is "winning this year" or "winning next year".
In addition to the above-mentioned "citation rate", "authority vane" and "professional cycle", there is another one of them, which is the most popular "time test". Generally, the average winning time for Nobel Prize research results is 10-20 years.
From the perspective of "time", there is a "dark horse" worth paying attention to. Yuk Ming Dennis of the Chinese University of Hong Kong , he reported in 1997 that during the growth and development of the fetus, cell-free DNA, will be produced into the mother's blood. Ten years later, he invented a "using abnormalities in detecting cell-free DNA in pregnant women's blood to screen for Down syndrome ", which started the clinical practice of non-invasive early screening for fetals. Currently, millions of people use this method for early screening every year. At the same time, he also has the blessing of the "winning vane": the 2021 Life Science Breakthrough Award and this year's Lasker Clinical Medicine Award.
2. Chemistry Award
According to the winning vane, the Chemistry Award may be that the research found the way of gene activation - Rockefeller's David Allis and UCLA's Michael Grunstein. They shared the 2018 Lasker Award and the 2016 Genetics Gruber Award. The control of gene expression is a basic process in cell biology, also known as epigenetics . Scientists and pharmaceutical companies are beginning to study how to regulate these processes to discover new treatments for disease.
The last time he won the Chemistry Award in Epigenetics was in 2006, awarded Roger Kornberg, who "solved the mystery of how RNA transcription completes assembly molecules". It has been almost 20 years since then. According to the "Professional Cycle" round, it may be epigenetics' turn this year.
From the perspective of professional cycles, this is especially true for DNA sequencing . The last time I won the award was in 1980. The winners were Wally Gilbert and Frederick Sanger. They invented the first method to measure the order of nucleic acid base pairs and named it after it. But since then, many achievements have been made in the field, and countless results have been made.
For example, scientists who drew the first human genome sketch, but the same award cannot exceed 3 people at most. So who can win this honor among the hundreds of scientists participating in the human genome project ? The human genome is the first major scientific plan in the field of life sciences and a research project that combines scientific and technological innovation, engineering development and large-scale production.
If the human genome is selected, who can win the award can be learned from the selection of the Physics Award in 2017. The Physics Award that year was also awarded to the "Gravity Wave Research Project" of the International Large Science Program, and the review committee selected the organizer of the Large Science Program. Therefore, if the Human Genome Project wins the award, it may be awarded to the program organizer, Francis Collins, who just stepped down as director of NIH, and former White House scientific consultant Eric Lander, who was working at the Broad Institute and completed most of the sketching work, and of course, Graig Venter, which competed with the national team and won a "small victory".
Of course, potential competitors related to DNA sequencing, there are another trio worth paying attention to, Marvin Caruthers of the University of Colorado, Leroy Hood of the Institute of Systems Biology, and Michael Hunkapiller of the sequencing giant Pacific Biosciences. They invented the underlying technology of the first generation of automatic sequencers, providing key support for the smooth implementation of the Human Genome Project.
However, if we follow the dimension of "winning vane", there is a "double" that is worth paying attention to. David Klenerman and Shankar Balasubramanian of the University of Cambridge, their research results, synthesized sequencing technology, won the Millennium Technology Prize in 2020 and this year's Breakthrough Prize in life sciences. This achievement has become an important force in the sequencing field today. If the
Chemistry Award is not awarded to the Human Genome Project, other competitive scientists include Zhenan Bao, an engineer at Stanford University, who has achieved paradigm-changing research results in the field of semiconductor polymer research—stretchable electronic skin; Daniel Nocerah, who has achieved significant results in the field of proton-coupled electron transfer processes that provide energy to cells; Bonnie Bassler, who has discovered a chemical communication system between population sensing and bacteria.
If we follow the parameter "time", the scientist John Jumper, the most popular chemistry award in online voting, is a bit "hanging". The AlphaFold platform shocked the world two years ago, and used artificial intelligence to fundamentally solve one of the most lasting challenges in biology. Through the amino acid sequence of protein , the 3D structure of protein is quickly and accurately predicted.
Although in the history of the Nobel Prize, there are also those who have won the prize in less than 10 years, such as the 2020 Chemistry Award ( gene editing ) that won the prize in 8 years, and the 2012 Medical Award (cell reprogramming) that won the prize in 6 years, but they are also a few of them after all. Although AlphaFold is supported by this year's Life Science Breakthrough Award, it is indeed too short for two years.
3. Physics Award
. The Nobel Prize in Physics may be that Stanford University and Chan Zuckerberg project Stephen Quake, he has achieved important research results in microfluidic technology, promoting the rapid development of non-invasive detection technology and single-cell sequencing technology.
Today, we are in an era of accelerating progress in medical research and cutting-edge technological progress. Studies have shown that since 1985, the speed of technological progress has exceeded 1,300%, and many "unprecedented" and "revolutionary" research breakthroughs have occurred, such as gene editing, tumor immunotherapy, cell and gene therapy, etc. With so many results and so few awards, it is not easy to predict accurately, but every year, the Nobel Prize Week still can't help but participate in it and enjoy yourself.
Although the purpose of our research is not to win awards, in October every year, there are a few days when the topics around the world will focus on the discussion of "major research results in human history and original research that changes the paradigm of disease treatment". This week, the world's spotlight will also shine on "the researchers with lonely lights and clear shadows", which is a great motivation and spiritual support for scientific and technological workers, especially those innovative pioneers who are facing the "burden of innovation".
