Why we need a Nobel Prize in Biology

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Agreed - While there is technically a Nobel Prize in “Physiology or Medicine,” biology encompasses so much more! If Darwin had lived another 19 years to see the first Nobel Prizes being awarded, his (and Wallace’s) theory of evolution by natural selection would have taken the cake… can you just imagine?
Jalees Rehman takes a look at this year’s Nobel Prize given for reprogramming adult cells into embryonic states. Shinya Yamanaka is someone that we all knew would get one.
But why did it take John Gurdon so long? His work on transplanting adult nuclei into eggs, and all of the developmental biology that came after it, was done half a century ago.
The Nobel community seems to insist on direct medical benefits for the work of prize recipients. Perhaps that doesn’t fit with the current times:
When the Nobel prizes were established more than a century ago, biology as an independent science was still in its infancy. The past century has brought us remarkable discoveries in biology, such as those in the areas of evolution or photosynthesis, which do not have a direct medical application. Just like the Nobel Prize in Physics honors great intellectual feats in the field of physics without documenting that these discoveries will lead to new technologies, biological discoveries should be similarly recognized without having to await imminent medical relevance.

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