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2010 Nobels recognize potential
of basic science to shape the world
prizes go to ivf, graphene and ‘carbon chemistry at its best’
A technology that has brought 4 million
babies into the world over the past three
decades has been recognized with a Nobel
Prize, along with two innovations that
promise to revolutionize how those children live in the 21st century.
The 2010 Nobel Prize in physiology
or medicine went to Robert Edwards of
the University of Cambridge in England
for pioneering in vitro fertilization, a
process that overcomes many causes
of infertility by creating embryos outside the body and implanting them in a
prospective mother’s uterus.
Edwards began research on IVF in the
1950s and later worked with gynecolo-
gist Patrick Steptoe. In the late 1960s
Edwards was the first to try human egg
removal and fertilization in vitro, a Latin
term meaning “in glass.”
“By a brilliant combination of basic and
applied medical research, Edwards over-
came one technical hurdle after another
in his persistence to discover a method
that would help to alleviate infertility,”
the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska
Institute stated in announcing the prize.
Ultimately, Edwards’ efforts gave rise
to both a medical breakthrough and a
now-outdated term — test-tube baby.
The first test-tube baby, Louise Brown,
was born July 25, 1978.
One winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in
physics, Konstantin Novoselov, was little
more than a toddler at the time. Now 36,
he and Andre Geim, both of the University of Manchester in England, published
their Nobel-winning discovery just
six years ago in Science (SN: 10/23/04,
p. 259). Since then almost 50,000 research
papers have been published on graphene,
the material the pair isolated from graphite using ordinary adhesive tape.
Graphene is made of carbon atoms
arranged in a honeycomb pattern,
forming a single layer so thin that it’s
nearly see-through. For such a humble
material, graphene displays some remark-
able properties: It conducts electrons
with extremely low resistance, can con-
duct heat 10 times better than copper and
exhibits strange quantum effects. Gra-
phene is also flexible and stronger than
steel. The substance could form the basis
for new kinds of electronics, transparent
displays, efficient solar panels or light-
weight plastic composite materials for
use in aerospace and other applications.
Robert G. Edwards
Physiology or Medicine
for the development of
in vitro fertilization
Andre Geim
Physics
for the discovery of
graphene and related
experiments
Konstantin Novoselov Physics for the discovery of graphene and related experiments
Richard F. Heck Chemistry for palladium-catalyzed reactions that combine carbon atoms
Ei-ichi Negishi Chemistry for palladium-catalyzed reactions that combine carbon atoms
to organic chemistry students, as well
as those in industry and academia. The
research that led to the prizes began back
in the 1950s and has become part of the
standard toolkit of chemists.
“This is fundamental carbon chemistry at its best,” says Joseph Francisco,
a Purdue chemist and president of the
American Chemical Society.
This year’s Nobel Prizes are worth
10 million Swedish kronor each, or about
$1.5 million. Geim and Novoselov will
split their prize evenly, as will Heck,
Negishi and Suzuki. — Nathan Seppa,
Laura Sanders, Rachel Ehrenberg
Akira Suzuki Chemistry for palladium-catalyzed reactions that combine carbon atoms
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