Chemistry Nobels
As occurs every year, the nobel prizes are being announced this week with very little fanfare. Today, the nobel prizes for chemistry were awarded for the "discoverers" of water and ion channels. By discoverers, I mean a crystallographer and someone who actually did discover a water channel. Strange thing is that I interviewed with the crystallographer at Rockefeller about a year ago... nice guy, evident he was doing something no one else was able to do -- a membrane protein crystallographer, whose almost kit like appraoch produces a structure a month or so...
The questions I will leave you with are: How much is the sucess in science or any field dependant on the specific skils developed by the individual? MacKinnon, the crystallographer, approaches the probem fundamentally differently than than any other crystallographer and within 5 years of his first struture he wins the nobel. He is an MD who decided he didnt like treating patients and pursued science instead. He came from no where as it were. In addition, there are researchers at drug companies that solve membrane protein structures as frequently as MacKinnon does, however, since they find themselves in the industry there discoveries are proprietary until the corporation can milk them for all they are worth so the delay in publication is often greater than 5 years. Did the nobel committee act too quickly in awarding the prize specifically to mackinnon, in the event that someone in industry had developed a similar route towards membrane protein structures? Should they care?
The questions I will leave you with are: How much is the sucess in science or any field dependant on the specific skils developed by the individual? MacKinnon, the crystallographer, approaches the probem fundamentally differently than than any other crystallographer and within 5 years of his first struture he wins the nobel. He is an MD who decided he didnt like treating patients and pursued science instead. He came from no where as it were. In addition, there are researchers at drug companies that solve membrane protein structures as frequently as MacKinnon does, however, since they find themselves in the industry there discoveries are proprietary until the corporation can milk them for all they are worth so the delay in publication is often greater than 5 years. Did the nobel committee act too quickly in awarding the prize specifically to mackinnon, in the event that someone in industry had developed a similar route towards membrane protein structures? Should they care?
Comments
Originally posted by billybobsky
As occurs every year, the nobel prizes are being announced this week with very little fanfare. Today, the nobel prizes for chemistry were awarded for the "discoverers" of water and ion channels. By discoverers, I mean a crystallographer and someone who actually did discover a water channel. Strange thing is that I interviewed with the crystallographer at Rockefeller about a year ago... nice guy, evident he was doing something no one else was able to do -- a membrane protein crystallographer, whose almost kit like appraoch produces a structure a month or so...
The questions I will leave you with are: How much is the sucess in science or any field dependant on the specific skils developed by the individual? MacKinnon, the crystallographer, approaches the probem fundamentally differently than than any other crystallographer and within 5 years of his first struture he wins the nobel. He is an MD who decided he didnt like treating patients and pursued science instead. He came from no where as it were. In addition, there are researchers at drug companies that solve membrane protein structures as frequently as MacKinnon does, however, since they find themselves in the industry there discoveries are proprietary until the corporation can milk them for all they are worth so the delay in publication is often greater than 5 years. Did the nobel committee act too quickly in awarding the prize specifically to mackinnon, in the event that someone in industry had developed a similar route towards membrane protein structures? Should they care?
Even if the discoverie of MacKinnon is the property of the corp, the nobel prize is the property of MacKinnon : the money of the prize is for him alone.
One of my father friend win a prize while working for the governement, the prize went for him and not the governement.
Originally posted by billybobsky
this is true, but my point is that there are researchers who cannot publish their data because their science belongs to a coorporation. For instance, I heard recently a discussion of research done three years ago, the speaker could not say what he is currently doing because it is proprietary, the research discussed during the talk has been used by his company to its fullest so now he is free to discuss it. Industry delays publication of anything that it might find useful.
I see, but in general i think that the nobel prize came a long time after the discoverie. The important is that the researcher finish to be rewarded for his oustanding work.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
I see, but in general i think that the nobel prize came a long time after the discoverie. The important is that the researcher finish to be rewarded for his oustanding work.
Exactly, MacKinnon published his first paper in 1998. He is only 47...