2020 Nobel Prizes

The Nobel Prizes are awarded every October, recognizing outstanding contributions to humanity in chemistry, literature, peace, physics and physiology or medicine; there’s also a prize in economic sciences. Here’s a round-up of this year’s winners in the sciences and some of their Annual Reviews papers.

This year’s prize in physiology or medicine was awarded jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus, which causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world. For a deep dive into the research, see: “Turning Hepatitis C into a Real Virus” in the Annual Review of Microbiology; “Interferon-Stimulated Genes: A Complex Web of Host Defenses” in the Annual Review of Immunology; and “New Methods in Tissue Engineering: Improved Models for Viral Infection” in the Annual Review of Virology.

The chemistry prize was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for the discovery and development of the genetic scissors called CRISPR-Cas9, which allow researchers to precisely alter the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms. For more of their research, see some of Dr. Doudna’s papers in the Annual Review of Biophysics: “CRISPR-Cas9 Structures and Mechanisms” and “Molecular Mechanisms of RNA Interference.”

This year’s prize in physics was awarded for work on black holes. Half of the award went to Roger Penrose for demonstrating that black holes were mathematically possible, and the other half was jointly awarded to Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez for their discovery of a massive black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. To dive into the research, see “The Evolution of the Star-Forming Interstellar Medium Across Cosmic Time” and “Extragalactic Results from the Infrared Space Observatory” in the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The 2020 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson, both of Stanford University, for their work on how auctions work, as well as their development of new types of auctions that have maximized revenue for sellers while saving buyer and taxpayer money. For more on their research, read Dr. Milgrom’s 2019 article “Auction Market Design: Recent Innovations” in the Annual Review of Economics.

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2018 MacArthur Fellows

Congratulations to the whole class of 2018 MacArthur Fellows, in particular, these four Annual Reviews contributing authors:


Analytical Chemist Livia S. Eberlin, of the University of Texas. Find her article for the 2013 Annual Review of Physical Chemistry here.


Health Economist Amy Finkelstein, of MIT. Find her articles for the 2010 and the 2018 Annual Review of Economics here.


Sociologist and Legal Scholar Rebecca Sandefur, of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Find her article for the 2008 Annual Review of Sociology here.


Neuroscientist Doris Tsao, of the California Institute of Technology. Find her article for the 2008 Annual Review of Neuroscience here.

 

2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Congratulations to our contributing authors James P. Allison, of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas, and Tasuku Honjo, of Kyoto University, who share the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.” Dr. Honjo was also a corresponding member of the Editorial Committee for the Annual Review of Immunology from 2005 to 2016.

We’ve made these articles freely available to celebrate this achievement:

Structure, Function, and Serology of the T-Cell Antigen Receptor Complex, J.P. Allison et al., 1987 Annual Review of Immunology
The Immunobiology of T Cells with Invariant gammadelta Antigen Receptors, J.P. Allison et al., 1991 Annual Review of Immunology
CTLA-4-Mediated Inhibition in Regulation of T Cell Responses: Mechanisms and Manipulation in Tumor Immunotherapy, J.P. Allison et al., 2001 Annual Review of Immunology
Immune Modulation in Cancers with Antibodies, J.P. Allison et al., 2014 Annual Review of Medicine
Immunoglobulin Genes, T. Honjo et al., 1983 Annual Review of Immunology
Origin of Immune Diversity: Genetic Variation and Selection, T. Honjo et al., 1985 Annual Review of Biochemistry
Molecular Mechanism of Class Switch Recombination: Linkage with Somatic Hypermutation, T. Honjo et al., 2002 Annual Review of Immunology

Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society. To find out how we create our highly cited reviews and stimulate discussion about science, please watch this short video. To find out how we create our highly cited reviews and stimulate discussion about science, please watch this short video. Members of the media can visit our Press Center to sign up for journal access.

Congratulations to Annual Reviews Authors on NAS Awards

Congratulations to the following Annual Reviews contributing authors for receiving these National Academy of Sciences awards:

Barbara Dosher, of the University of California, Irvine, won the Atkinson Prize in Psychological and Cognitive Sciences “for her groundbreaking work on human memory, attention, and learning.” She wrote for the 2017 Annual Review of Vision Science.

She shared the prize with Richard Shiffrin, of Indiana University, who was recognized “for pioneering contributions to the investigation of memory and attention.” He wrote for the 1992 Annual Review of Psychology.

Günter Wagner, of Yale University, won the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal “for his book  Homology, Genes, and Evolutionary Innovation, which makes fundamental contributions to our understanding of the evolution of complex organisms.” He wrote for the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics in 1989 and 1991.

Mark E. Hay, of the Georgia Institute of Technology, won the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal “for his research into algal science, with implications for the world’s imperiled coral reefs.” He wrote for the Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics in 1988 and 2004, and the Annual Review of Marine Science in 2009.

James P. Allison, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Center, won the Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal “for important discoveries related to the body’s immune response to tumors.” He wrote for the Annual Review of Immunology in 1987, 1991, and 2001, and the Annual Review of Medicine in 2014.

Howard Y. Chang, of Stanford University, won the NAS Award in Molecular Biology “for the discovery of long noncoding RNAs and the invention of genomic technologies.” He wrote for the Annual Review of Biochemistry in 2009 and 2012.

Rodolphe Barrangou, of North Carolina State University, won the NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences “for the discovery of the genetic mechanisms and proteins driving CRISPR-Cas systems.” He wrote for the Annual Review of Food Science in 2012, 2016, and 2017, and the Annual Review of Genetics in 2017.

Marlene R. Cohen, of the University of Pittsburgh, won the Troland Research Award “for her pioneering studies of how neurons in the brain process visual information.” She wrote for the Annual Review of Neuroscience in 2012 and 2018.

Etel Solingen, of the University of California, Irvine, won the William and Katherine Estes Award “for pathbreaking work on nuclear proliferation and reducing the risks of nuclear war.” She wrote for the Annual Review of Political Science in 2010.

Jennifer A. Doudna, Annual Reviews Contributing Author, Wins Kavli Prize, NAS Medal

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Photo: Doudna Lab, UC Berkeley

Congratulations to Jennifer A. Doudna, of the University of California, Berkeley, who won the 2018 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience and the National Academy of Science Award in Chemical Sciences.

Dr. Doudna shared the Kavli Prize with Emmanuelle Charpentier, of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, and Virginijus Šikšnys, of Vilnius University, “for the invention of CRISPR-Cas9, a precise nanotool for editing DNA, causing a revolution in biology, agriculture, and medicine.” 

She received the NAS Award “for co-inventing the technology for efficient site-specific genome engineering using CRISPR/Cas9 nucleases.”

Read her articles on the topic here.

2018 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience Goes to Annual Reviews Authors Hudspeth, Fettiplace, Petit

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Photo: kavliprize.org.

Congratulations to A. James Hudspeth, of Rockefeller University; Robert Fettiplace, of the University of Wisconsin–Madison; and Christine Petit, of the Institut Pasteur, who shared the 2018 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience “for their pioneering work on the molecular and neural mechanisms of hearing.”

Click on their names to find the articles they wrote for the Annual Review of Biophysics, the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, the Annual Review of Neuroscience, the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, and the Annual Review of Physiology.

Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics Co-Editor Ewine van Dishoeck Wins Kavli Prize, NAS Medal

Screen Shot 2018-06-04 at 11.13.24.pngCongratulations to Ewine van Dishoeck, of Leiden University, who won the 2018 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics and the National Academy of Science James Craig Watson Medal.

The Co-Editor of the Annual Review of Astrophysics received the Kavli Prize “for her combined contributions to observational, theoretical, and laboratory astrochemistry, elucidating the life cycle of interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets.”

The James Craig Watson Medal was awarded to her “for improving our understanding of how molecules, stars, and planets form.”

Dr. van Dishoeck has co-edited the journal with Sandra Faber since 2010. You can find her articles about planet, star, and molecule formation here.

The NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing goes to Daniel S. Nagin!

Yesterday, Daniel S. Nagin, the Teresa and H. John Heinz III University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, and a Committee Member of the Annual Review of Criminology (which will publish in 2018), was awarded the 2017 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award for Scientific Reviewing sponsored by us! Eva Emerson, Senior Editor (forthcoming digital magazine), and Samuel Gubins, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, attended the ceremony in Washington D.C, USA.

Daniel S. Nagin with his award, flanked by NAS leaders.

Dr. Nagin was honored for exemplary reviews of the scientific literature on the crime-prevention effects of criminal and civil sanctions. These reviews have altered the course of criminological theory and empirical research, and have greatly informed analysis of public policy.

During his acceptance speech, Dr. Nagin reminded the audience of the importance of scientific reviews to the progress of science. He also said that the reporting of new results and the “synthesis of extant knowledge are both creative acts in their own right.”

His work appears in many leading publications, including Annual Reviews, which is publishing an article and response from him in the 2017 volume of the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.

new_logoAnnual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society. To find out how we create our highly cited reviews and stimulate discussion about science, please watch this short video.

The NAS is a private, nonprofit society of distinguished scholars. Established by an Act of Congress, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. The NAS is committed to furthering science in America, and its members are active contributors to the international scientific community.

“Queen of Carbon Science” Mildred Dresselhaus Dies

Screen Shot 2017-02-22 at 17.20.21.pngMildred S. Dresselhaus, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) physicist known as the “Queen of Carbon Science,” died at the age of 86 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts on Monday, February 20, 2017. She was the first woman at MIT to attain the rank of full, tenured professor, and the first woman to receive the National Medal of Science in Engineering.

Dr. Dresselhaus spent her career studying the properties of carbon and was instrumental in developing carbon nanotubes, which have shown promise in the creation of better electricity conduction and stronger materials. She also contributed to the development of thermoelectric materials, which can transform temperature difference into electricity.

Read her autobiographical article in the 2011 Annual Review of Condensed Matter Physics.

Research partners: Happy Valentine’s Day from Annual Reviews

I have a soft spot for the Annual Review autobiographies. I open each volume’s table of contents and eagerly search for them. I’m always interested in how our authors discovered their passion for their field and the interplay between their lives and their science. Among these articles there are a few that are written by husband and wife teams—and they are an extraordinary glimpse into shared lives.

herzenbergs

I first encountered Leonard and Leonore Herzenberg in their article “Genetics, FACS, Immunology, and Redox: A Tale of Two Lives Intertwined,” published in the Annual Review of Immunology in 2004.  I was quite taken with the way they handed the narrative back and forth, as well as the humor with which they told their story. I was delighted to find them writing for us again in 2014 for the Annual Review of Physiology, and even more delighted to find they had done a video interview!  These two articles remain among my favorites, and I was sad to learn that Dr. Leonard Herzenberg had passed away soon after the video was made.

Here is a snippet from Dr. Leonore Herzenberg about their time in Paris at the Pasteur Institute from the 2004 volume of the Annual Review of Immunology:

…because Len loved hands-on experimentation, I took over much of the data recording, computation, and display (plotting) that was needed. The work was tedious (slide rules were the closest thing to computers at the time). However, it gave me the opportunity to do a preliminary analysis of the data and try novel approaches to analyzing LacZ induction kinetics. Len left this to me. He was more interested in developing methods and experiment designs that would enable clear conclusions without a lot of mathematical interference. This division of labor, which reflects Len’s innate preference for concreteness and my innate love for theory, remains with us even today.

bb-richardsonsDrs. Jane and David Richardson wrote “Doing Molecular Biophysics: Finding, Naming, and Picturing Signal Within Complexity” for the Annual Review of Biophysics in 2013. While the article focuses mainly on their research, it is full of stories about their shared experiences, such as this one:

We spent a large fraction of our lives from the early 1970s to the early 1990s in Fred Brooks’ computer graphics lab at the University of North Carolina (UNC). There we accomplished much of our own research in protein structure, acted as guinea pigs for in-depth testing of their software and hardware, and played happily with the science fiction–level gadgets that explored far-out new possibilities such as virtual reality displays, volume rendering, force feedback, fitting models into electron density, or tugging on atoms to move local structure with (more or less) physical realism. Some things worked splendidly and soon became widespread; some failed by being surprisingly unhelpful, making you sick, or whacking you in the chest (their gadgets never just fell apart)…

iy7-kleins

In 1989, George and Eva Klein wrote “How One Thing Has Led to Another” for the Annual Review of Immunology.  Their story begins with a whirlwind romance and an intrigue-filled move into Sweden just as the Iron Curtain was falling on Dr. Klein’s Hungarian homeland.  From the epilogue of their article:

As each of us is moving towards the approaching darkness, the sun is never setting over the vast oceans of science. It has been a rare privilege to live and work through the times when the genetic material turned from protein to DNA, when adaptive changes in cell populations-including antibody production-were unmasked as Darwinian variations and selection, when GOD became the rearrangement of immunoglobulin genes, violating the dogma that all somatic cells have the same DNA….It was a great time, and it still is, but it is only the stumbling, stuttering, premature foreshadowing of what lies ahead. We have barely scratched the surface.

bi-taborThe story of Celia White Tabor and Herbert Tabor’s work in biochemical research was chronicled along with their personal history in the article “It All Started on a Streetcar in Boston” for the Annual Review of Biochemistry in 1999.  Among the scientific discussion are small stories about their lives and friendships, making this an interesting read.

We first met on a Boston streetcar in 1940, being introduced by a mutual friend. Celia was returning from research work at the Massachusetts General Hospital as part of her senior thesis at Radcliffe College, and Herb was returning from a concert by the Boston Symphony. We were married in 1946 after Celia had finished her medical training. We started working together in 1952, and we are still actively collaborating in our studies on various aspects of the biosynthesis and function of polyamines.

Suzanne K. Moses is Annual Reviews’ Senior Electronic Content Coordinator. For 15+ years, she has played a central role in the publication of Annual Reviews’ online articles. Not a single page is posted online without first being proofed and quality checked by Suzanne.