From physics to literature, all about the winners of the Nobel Prize 2022

It is that time of the year, when a handful of world’s leading scholars, social activists and researchers are rewarded with what is often cited as the most prestigious acknowledgement of human effort — the Nobel Prize.

With a total of six prizes in physiology or medicine, physics, chemistry, economic science, literature and peace work, committees in Sweden and Norway announce the respective laureates over a period of a week to 10 days, in the month of October every year.

After a hiatus of two years, the Nobel Foundation has announced, laureates will receive their prize medals and diplomas in Stockholm in December. Winners from 2020 and 2021 will also be invited to attend the ceremony. The Nobel also includes a prize money of $900,000.

So far, five Nobel prizes have already been awarded, with a new announcement for each day this week. The final award, the Nobel in Economics will be announced on Monday, at 4:30 pm IST. Announcements are made in Stockholm and Oslo and will be streamed live on the official digital channels of the Nobel Prize.

Here’s a look at who has won the prestigious prize and for what.

Physiology or Medicine

Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo won the first Nobel of the year, for initiating the field of ancient DNA studies. He is renowned for extracting, sequencing, and analysing ancient DNA from Neanderthal bones.

He has served as the director of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany since 1997, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at London’s Natural History Museum

Pääbo’s pioneering research was released in 2010, in which he discovered that most present-day humans share 1 per cent to 4 per cent of their DNA with Neanderthals, implying that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens must have encountered one another and had children before Neanderthals went extinct around 40,000 years ago.

The genome Pääbo sequenced also revealed an entirely new kind of extinct human, called Denisovans after the name of the cave in Siberia, where they were found. By comparing Denisovan DNA with the genetic records of modern humans, he then revealed that some populations in Asia and Melanesia inherited up to 6 per cent of their DNA from this ancient human.

Physics

The 2022 Nobel in Physics was awarded to Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for their work in quantum physics.

Clauser worked on physicist John Bell’s ideas and took measurements that supported quantum mechanics by clearly violating a Bell inequality, proving that quantum mechanics cannot be replaced by a theory that uses hidden variables. Alain Aspect developed a setup that closed an important loophole in Clauser’s work.

Anton Zeillinger on the other hand demonstrated a phenomenon called quantum teleportation, which makes it possible to move a quantum state from one particle to one at a distance.

Together the group has brought greater insights into the concept of the “entangled state” of subatomic particles.

Chemistry

The Nobel in Chemistry also went to a group of three scientists — Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and Barry Sharpless — for discovering chemical reactions that let molecules snap together to create new compounds and that offer insight into cell biology. The field of click chemistry that their experiments subsequently gave rise to, along with bioorthogonal chemistry has been harnessed to improve the targeting of cancer pharmaceuticals now being tested in clinical trials, along with a host of health, agricultural, and industrial applications.

Out of the three, Barry Sharpless is one of the rare few who have the distinction of winning two Nobel Prizes. His earlier prize, also in Chemistry, came in 2001, for his work on chirally catalysed oxidation reactions.

Literature

French author Annie Ernaux pipped the likes of Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh, to win the latest Nobel prize for 2022. Ernaux was bestowed with the prize for “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” She became the 16th Nobel laureate in literature from France, the 17th woman, and the first French woman to win the prize.

Ernaux moved away from fiction very early in her career to focus on the genre of autobiography. Her works have delved into the historical and individualised chronicles while charting the journey of her parents, her personal medical and health-related battles, and her marriage. Her 2008 historical memoir Les Annees (The Years) has been widely acclaimed by critics as a magnum opus, for its detailed portrait of the French society right after World War II. The book also won her a nomination for the International Booker Prize in 2019.  

Peace

The Nobel Peace prize was shared by human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Centre for Civil Liberties.

Bialiatski is one of the initiators of the democratic movement that emerged in Belarus in the mid-1980s. He is also the founder of the organisation Viasna (Spring) in 1996 in response to the constitutional amendments that gave the Belarusian president dictatorial powers. The Nobel website mentioned that Viasna has evolved over time into a “broad-based human rights organisation that documented and protested against the authorities’ use of torture against political prisoners”, said the committee.

Memorial, the Russian human rights organisation was founded in 1987 by activists in the former Soviet Union including the 1954 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Andrei Sakharov, and human rights advocate Svetlana Gannushkina. “Memorial is based on the notion that confronting past crimes is essential in preventing new ones”, the committee said. It is described as the largest human rights organisation in Russia, and in the present day, it helped in gathering information on “the political oppression and human rights violations in Russia.”

The third recipient, Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties was founded in Kyiv in 2007 and has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian “war crimes” against the Ukrainian civilian population during Russia’s recent invasion, according to the committee.

By selecting the three winners from Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, the Nobel Committee has sent a subtle but powerful appeal for peace in the region.