North American Scientists Sweep This Year's Nobel Prizes

Advances in transplant science, synthetic organic chemistry, and the study of quarks have allowed six North American scientists to sweep this year's three Nobel science prizes. E. Donnall Thomas, 70, and Joseph E. Murray, 71, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology for their work in transplant medicine. Thomas, director emeritus of the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center's Division of Clinical Research, was cited for his pivotal work on bone marrow transplantation--a treatment often offered as a last hope for patients afflicted with various types of leukemia and other blood-related and genetic disorders. In 1956, Thomas successfully transplanted donor marrow into a human patient. Thomas's Nobel Prize came swiftly on the heels of another highly regarded award: He and six other researchers recently received the 1990 Gairdner Foundation International Awards in recognition of their contributions to medical science (see People, page 25 of this issue). Murray, professor of surgery, emeritus, at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, was recognized by the Nobel committee for his pioneering work in transplant medicine. In 1954, Murray performed the first successful kidney transplant between identical twins. He later championed the use of organs from deceased donors and demonstrated that the application of whole body irradiation could induce immunosuppression, thus reducing the risk that the recipient would reject the donated organ. The Nobel committee awarded its prize in chemistry to one scientist--Elias J. Corey, 62, of Harvard University. Corey, who is Sheldon Emery Professor of Organic Chemistry at Harvard, was cited for his groundbreaking research on the synthesis of organic molecules, and for developing theory and methodology in this area. The field of synthetic organic chemistry, which has been recognized by the Nobel committee in the past, is important in the manufacturing of compounds such as drugs and pesticides. Corey's research demonstrated that first breaking a natural compound down into its basic parts would simplify the process of synthesis as opposed to building the desired compounds by adding components to a simpler, but similar, compound. Recently, The Scientist featured Corey as one of its "nominees" for the Nobel Prize in chemistry based on his impressive citation record and extensive list of awards (The Scientist, Sept. 17, 1990, page 16). Three scientists shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in physics: Americans Jerome I. Friedman, 60, and Henry W. Kendall, 64; and Canadian Richard E. Taylor, 60, were honored for their work that provided experimental evidence for the existence of quarks. Friedman and Kendall of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Taylor of Stanford University led a team of researchers that conducted a series of experiments from 1967 to 1973 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Their experiments set out to prove the quark model that Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig of the California Institute of Technology had predicted in 1964. During these experiments, the team fired high-energy electrons produced by the two-mile linear accelerator at neutrons and protons and observed the electron scattering. The observations proved that the subatomic neutrons and protons were indeed composed of even smaller particles, quarks--a name Gell-Mann coined from a line in James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. Last year, the American Physical Society awarded the trio its W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in recognition of their "outstanding achievements in experimental particle physics." Friedman, William A. Coolidge Professor of Physics, has been a faculty member of MIT since 1960. Kendall, an MIT faculty member since 1961, is the director and founding member of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Taylor, a professor of physics at SLAC, has been with the center since it was founded in 1962. In addition to the medal and the fame, each Nobel prize came with a hefty cash award of $700,000 to be shared by the winners in each category. In the November 26 issue, The Scientist will take an in-depth look at the research histories--notably, the key papers--of the six new Nobel laureates in medicine or physiology, chemistry, and physics.

North American Scientists Sweep This Year's Nobel Prizes

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