Overdue, First-Time Recognitions Mark '95 Nobel Science, Peace Prizes

Peace Prizes Author: Karen Young Kreeger Sidebar: 1995 Scientific Laureates Last month's announcements of the 1995 Nobel Prize recipients in the sciences were greeted with hearty approval by scientists from various sectors of the research community. Many of these investigators felt a sense of validation for their fields in the selection committees' choices. In physiology or medicine, the burgeoning discipline of developmental biology was recognized, and the subdiscipline of atmospheric chemistry was honored for the first time. Meanwhile, in physics, two discoverers of subatomic particles were named as laureates, an accolade that some physicists say was long overdue. This year, as well, the influence of researchers extended beyond the laboratory, as a scientist and a scientist- initiated group were named as the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. The last scientist recognized in this way received the honor 20 years ago. Another Nobel milestone was reached as the 10th woman scientist in the history of the prizes was named a laureate. "I was pleased to see that a woman was included," says Harriet Zuckerman, vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York and author of Scientific Elite: Nobel Laureates in the United States (2d ed., New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Press, 1996) "The number of women that have received Nobel Prizes is very small. It was good to see someone who is youngish and in the full force of her career be honored." LANDMARK LAUREATE: CHRISTIANE Nüsslein-Volhard is the 10th woman scientist to win a medal. The woman, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, 52, director of the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tubingen, Germany, was selected along with Eric F. Wieschaus, 48, Squibb Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, and Edward B. Lewis, 77, Thomas Hunt Morgan Professor of Biology, Emeritus, at the California Institute of Technology to share the prize in physiology or medicine for their work "in the genetic control of early embryonic development." Paul Crutzen, 62, a professor of chemistry at the Max Planck Institute in Mainz, Germany; Mario J. Molina, 52, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and F. Sherwood Rowland, 68, Bren Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, were named corecipients of the prize for chemistry for their research in atmospheric chemistry, "particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone." The laureates honored with the physics prize were Martin L. Perl, 68, a professor of physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and Frederick Reines, 77, distinguished professor, emeritus, of physics at UC-Irvine. They were chosen for their discovery of subatomic particles, Perl for the tau lepton and Reines for the neutrino. The Norwegian Nobel Committee named both Joseph Rotblat, 86, a Polish-born British physicist, and the organization he helped to found-the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs -- as recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1995. Rotblat is president of Pugwash, whose main offices are located in London. Pugwash, which is based on the notion that scientists should take responsibility for their inventions, and Rotblat were recognized for their "efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics." Each winner will receive or share a prize of almost $1 million, which will be given next month. The peace prize will be presented in Oslo; the other prizes will be awarded in Stockholm. In painstaking genetic experiments using the fruit-fly, Drosophila melanogaster, this year's corecipients for the prize in physiology or medicine have identified key genes in the fly's early development. Their investigations laid the groundwork for other researchers to find similar genes in more complex animals, including humans. Indeed, the Nobel committee cited the three laureates as having "achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital malformations in man." Starting in the late 1970s, Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard, while working together at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, created nearly 33,000 families of fly mutants. Within this vast mutant menagerie, there were about 150 cases in which the mutations created extraordinary effects in Drosophila embryos: skin composed of nervous cells or entirely missing organs. It took until the 1980s to sort out the genes' function and how they govern development, relates Wieschaus. Lewis started his work on homeotic genes in the 1950s. These genes provide the road map for guiding undifferentiated cells in an embryo to separate correctly into head and tail regions, as well as the correct positions for eyes, legs, antennae, and other organs. "[Nüsslein-Volhard] was on the ground floor with [Wieschaus] in terms of isolating the mutants," according to Frank Ruddle, Sterling Professor of Biology and Genetics at Yale University. "Ed Lewis, on the other hand, is the father of the field, in that he had been working with homeotic mutants for a long time and had recognized their importance." Nüsslein-Volhard is the first woman in seven years to be named a Nobel laureate. Gertrude B. Elion, while working at the Wellcome Research Laboratories in Research Triangle Park, N.C., was a corecipient of the prize in physiology or medicine in 1988. At press time, Nüsslein-Volhard was unavailable for comment. Eight other women have won a Nobel Prize in science since the first were given in 1901. Marie Curie, in fact, received two Nobel Prizes in science, one in 1903 for physics and one in 1911 for chemistry. Although Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard know Lewis and his research, they have never collaborated with him. Lewis says his work fits in "very logically" with that of his co-laureates. "We first worked on the genes that control the head, thorax, and abdomen of the fly. [Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard] succeeded in producing a whole lot of mutations that affect the development much earlier than the period that the segments start to show up." A 1978 Nature paper by Lewis-"Possible genetic consequences of irradiation of tumors in childhood" (E.G. Lewis, 276:565-70)-describing his human genetic work has been cited more than 1,000 times through August 1995. One of Wieschaus and Nüsslein-Volhard's seminal papers, "Mutations affecting the pattern of the larval cuticle in Drosophila melanogaster. 3. Zygotic loci on the X-chromosome and 4th chromosome" (E. Wieschaus, G. Jurgens, C. Nüsslein-Volhard, Wilhelm Roux Archives of Developmental Biology, 193:296-307, 1984), describing the chromosomal location of fly genes, has been cited more than 225 times through August 1995. To Lewis, the decision to award the prize to three classical geneticists recognizes "the power of genetics" to answer scientific questions. "I think it's true to say, as Lewis pointed out, that pure genetics [vs. molecular genetics] in this case originally opened up the field [of developmental biology]," adds Ruddle. After the flurry of activity that commonly accompanies a nobel announcement, Wieschaus and his colleagues are back at the bench. "The wonderful thing is I know I'm back to normal because none of my experiments are working," he jokes. "It's not like I'm on this cloud-nine success rate. It's back to the day-to-day struggle of getting it to work." This year's chemistry prize is being viewed by many researchers as a coming of age, of sorts, for atmospheric chemistry. "What this does is indicate that the chemistry of the atmosphere is now recognized as a legitimate subject for chemical investigations," says Rowland. Molina, who started work with Rowland as a postdoc at UC-Irvine in the early 1970s, adds: "It's rewarding that [atmospheric chemistry] is now recognized as valid and first-rate science. The community of atmospheric chemists has shown that one is able to do very rigorous science in spite of the complexities of Earth's systems." Crutzen, Molina, and Rowland all made ground-breaking contributions to explaining how the ozone layer, which is located in the stratosphere, about 9 to 12 miles above the Earth's surface, chemically forms and deteriorates. Twenty-five years ago, Crutzen showed that nitrogen oxides produced by decaying soil microbes react with stratospheric ozone, thereby accelerating its decay. This work led to a spate of investigations on global biogeochemical cycles, studies that continue today. One of Crutzen's landmark papers, "Absorption and emission by carbon-dioxide in mesophere," in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (P.J. Crutzen, R. Firth, J.T. Houghton, 96:320, 1970), was cited more than 325 times through August 1995. The "next leap" in ozone chemistry research, according to the Nobel citation, came soon after, with Rowland and Molina's research describing the threat to the ozone layer from freons, or chlorofluorocarbon gases (CFCs), used predominantly in spray cans, refrigerators, and air conditioners. They proposed that CFCs, once transported to the stratosphere, would react chemically to become ozone-binding agents. Their paper-F.S. Rowland, M.J. Molina, "Chlorofluoromethanes in the environment," Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics, 13:1-35, 1975-has been cited in more than 430 publications through August 1995 (see Hot Papers, page 16). Because of the three chemists' contributions-along with those of their colleagues-to the basic understanding of atmospheric ozone chemistry, the international Montreal Protocol, setting a timetable to prohibit the release of ozone-depleting chemicals, was adopted in 1987. The most dangerous of these chemicals are set to be completely banned in 1996. The naming of Perl and Reines fulfilled long-held expectations by the physics community that the two would be recognized. In fact, outspoken physicist Robert Park, in his weekly "What's New" Internet column distributed to the media, stated that the Nobel committee had discovered "a couple of oversights." Almost 40 years ago, Reines and the late Clyde L. Cowan were the first to experimentally detect neutrinos; 20 years later, in the early 1970s, Perl discovered the tau lepton, a superheavy relative of the electron. Both findings advanced understanding of the elementary composition of matter. Perl wrote in a "Citation Classic" essay (also in Hot Papers, page 16) that "the discovery of the tau lepton opens a new area of particle physics." The article describing Perl's tau lepton work-"Evidence for anomalous lepton production in e+-e- annihilation" (M.L. Perl et al., Physical Review Letters, 35:1489-92, 1975)-has been cited in more than 500 publications through August 1995. Detecting the neutrino set the stage for the present standard model of particle physics, and uncovering the tau lepton unified the theory by showing that a hypothesized third group of subatomic particles existed. In fact, the last particle in this group, the top quark, was found earlier this year by scientists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. The confirmation of Reines and Cowan's neutrino discovery was published in a 1956 Science paper: C.L. Cowan, F. Reines, et al., "Detection of the free neutrino- confirmation" (124:103-4). It is somewhat anomalous that this article has been cited in only about 65 subsequent papers, suggesting that it quickly became incorporated into the common wisdom and became unnecessary to cite explicitly. At press time, Reines was unavailable for an interview because of an undisclosed illness. "I never worked with him, but I know him very well," relates Perl. "He's a tremendous experimenter and is always optimistic that new ideas might work out." Perl predicts that eventually his work and that of his colleagues will lead to an improved understanding of the nature of energy and time. "Some great young woman or young man will figure out how to get into it experimentally or theoretically," he says. "That's my hope." But it is dwindling sustenance for new ideas and young scientists that currently concerns Perl. "There are two things that are always on my mind," he comments. "One has to do with finding support for young scientists. The ones who are particularly hit hardest are young women. The second thing is that as research funds get tight-and they are tight-new, strange ideas don't get funded. Somehow some amount of funds should be set aside for young people with strange ideas." Since 1957, organizers of the Pugwash Conferences have brought together influential scholars and public figures who are their name from the tiny Canadian village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, where the first meeting was held. The impetus for the group's initial get-together was the "Russell-Einstein Manifesto," a 1955 document issued by Albert Einstein and British philosopher Bertrand Russell declaring the threat of thermonuclear weapons. Forty years later, there have been more than 200 Pugwash-sponsored conferences attended by nearly 10,000 individuals. Still, the announcement took the organization by surprise. "All of us involved in the running of Pugwash have known for years that Pugwash had been nominated from time to time for the Nobel Peace Prize," said John Holdren, the Class of 1935 Professor of Energy and Resources at the University of California, Berkeley, and cochairman of U.S. Pugwash, in an E-mail interview with The Scientist. "In the 1980s, I thought from time to time that Pugwash might get it, but I had more or less given up in recent years-given the widespread drop in interest in issues of nuclear weapons and related matters after the end of the Cold War." The naming of Rotblat and Pugwash marks the first time in 20 years that a scientist has been named as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The last two scientists so honored were human rights advocate Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet nuclear physicist, in 1975, and Norman Borlaug, an American agronomist and plant pathologist, in 1970. Borlaug helped lay the groundwork for the "Green Revolution," introducing high-yield crops into the developing world. At press time, Rotblat was unavailable for an interview owing to illness and travel. "The day of the announcement he gave nine hours of continuous interviews and thereupon lost his voice," relates Holdren. According to Holdren, Pugwash has "always run on a financial shoestring." The prize money will make a "substantial difference" for the group's international activities, he says. "For one thing, it will be easier to bring more participants [to meetings] from less-developed countries, where travel money to international meetings is hard to raise." He also mentions that the award will boost the awareness and prestige of the organization worldwide, especially in the U.S. "Pugwash is actually quite well known in Europe, Russia, and Japan-where people in general pay a lot more attention to international relations than they do in the United States." Sidebar: 1995 Scientific Laureates

Overdue, First-Time Recognitions Mark '95 Nobel Science, Peace Prizes

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