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Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

nobelprize.org

81–90 of 121 posts

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#81
post #58
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be conflating the mRNA vaccine with viral vector ones.

Not at all. Here is the news of a woman who died after getting the Pfizer's vaccine: (In Portuguese) https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/estadao-verifica/gover... The news say that it was unrelated to the vaccine and it was a heart attack. However, I do not believe in coincidences and am very skeptical that the vaccine has not had some effect on this. Note that she died 1 day after getting the vaccine.

Such "anecdotal evidence" doesn't say much per se.

In austria, a women died of a heart attack while waiting in line to be injected. Just imagine what would have happend if the heart attack would have happened 30 minutes later, it would have been very hard to convince people the heart attack was not related to the vaccination.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#82

I appreciate that some Nobel selections, like this one, are for core biological discoveries rather than hot topics. How our bodies perceive / interface with the world is fundamental to our human experience: Pain, temperature, positioning. And that these perceptions can be significantly modulated by how our bodies process them (eg pain). Not only is their actual body of work impressive, as it cuts across so many metho…

Hard disagree. These are for lack of better word standard discoveries that the high intensity labs discover with pretty much standard methodologies and no Innovations worthy of a Nobel. Of course we have receptors for heat and touch, and of course someone eventually found them. What’s original in that process? This is not RNAi, or CRISPR, or GFP. One of the more underwhelming Nobels in recent times. Somehow worse tha…

Hard disagree your hard disagree.

If you throw a vase in the air it will fall down and shatter: like, duh it’s gravity. But how many years to figure the equations? To tie the how/why to the obvious?

Don’t trivialize their work because your work didn’t receive a Nobel. K thanks.

These discoveries could be game changers for prosthetics, brain computer interfaces, augmented reality, etc.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the image in their scientific motivation to see where this has played a role. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/press-medicine202...

You can write lists like that for pretty much half the genes in the genome. If you ask a pharma company to rank order genes they would like to get exclusively as targets these would be ranked in 4 digits if not 3. There’s a reason no lab bothered to discover it for so long. Sydney Brenner said in the 60s that they already discovered all there is to molecular biology and leave the details to the “Americans” (1). These…

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Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#84

I appreciate that some Nobel selections, like this one, are for core biological discoveries rather than hot topics. How our bodies perceive / interface with the world is fundamental to our human experience: Pain, temperature, positioning. And that these perceptions can be significantly modulated by how our bodies process them (eg pain). Not only is their actual body of work impressive, as it cuts across so many metho…

Hard disagree. These are for lack of better word standard discoveries that the high intensity labs discover with pretty much standard methodologies and no Innovations worthy of a Nobel. Of course we have receptors for heat and touch, and of course someone eventually found them. What’s original in that process? This is not RNAi, or CRISPR, or GFP. One of the more underwhelming Nobels in recent times. Somehow worse tha…

The criteria for winning the prize depend more on the outcome of the research (importance) than its process (originality):

"The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- – -/ one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine …” (Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)".

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#85
post #3

I would have appreciated this year's one going for mRNA vaccine research as this would have been clearly the one to meet Nobel's will.

That's a chemistry prize and most likely will happen in the next 2-3 days. Typically technologies are rewarded in chemistry whereas basic science (physiology) is rewarded in medicine.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#86
post #3

I would have appreciated this year's one going for mRNA vaccine research as this would have been clearly the one to meet Nobel's will.

I agree, but I guess the challenge here is who are the 3 scientists to credit? Katalin Karikó is certainly one of them, but who are the other two? Weissman? Ugur Sahin? Özlem Türeci? Ingmar Hoerr? Noubar Afeyan? And then there is the weirdo guy that calls himself "mrna vaccine inventor"? I guess the committee needs another 1-2 years time to decide on that, with the benefit of hindsight.

If you look at the past awards, the Nobel committee prefers awarding those who published the earliest, fundamental results. Even if it was published in some obscure non-English language journal (see the artemisinin prize, for example).

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the image in their scientific motivation to see where this has played a role. https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2021/10/press-medicine202...

You can write lists like that for pretty much half the genes in the genome. If you ask a pharma company to rank order genes they would like to get exclusively as targets these would be ranked in 4 digits if not 3. There’s a reason no lab bothered to discover it for so long. Sydney Brenner said in the 60s that they already discovered all there is to molecular biology and leave the details to the “Americans” (1). These…

I guess Sydney suffered from scientific hubris, it happens to the best of us ;)

What can I say. Next year there'll be a new price, maybe you'll be more impressed with next year's choice.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#88
post #81
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. Here is the news of a woman who died after getting the Pfizer's vaccine: (In Portuguese) https://politica.estadao.com.br/blogs/estadao-verifica/gover... The news say that it was unrelated to the vaccine and it was a heart attack. However, I do not believe in coincidences and am very skeptical that the vaccine has not had some effect on this. Note that she died 1 day after getting the vaccine.

Such "anecdotal evidence" doesn't say much per se. In austria, a women died of a heart attack while waiting in line to be injected. Just imagine what would have happend if the heart attack would have happened 30 minutes later, it would have been very hard to convince people the heart attack was not related to the vaccination.

Sure it does not, but it does not say that it was not from the vaccine as well.

I am also very distrustful of our government influence in investigations after covid vaccines. The government wants the vaccine to work so that it can go back to normality and not have to worry about the impending financial crisis that would come faster if there was no vaccine.

How do I know that other people that died after getting the vaccine were not from a side effect of it? How can I be sure that these numbers are 100% correct? How can I be sure that all those covid deaths are really from covid and not something else unrelated to it? I am not saying that the vaccines are responsible for 20, 30% of the deaths or something like that, but there is the incentive from the government to not provide the real picture of these numbers (if they are not ridiculous numbers of course).

As in tech, be very distrustful of everything version 1.0. It always has some bugs to iron out ;)

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#89
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one side, you are correct and it's only last year / this year that mRNA vaccines have seen widespread adoption. On the other, mRNA research goes back to the 80's, and mRNA vaccine research goes back twenty years; these facts are often overlooked by the "it was developed too fast" crowds. That said, > It's not a popularity content. And yet, they gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize the year he was elected, without…

>On the other, mRNA research goes back to the 80's, and mRNA vaccine research goes back twenty years; these facts are often overlooked by the "it was developed too fast" crowds. I am on that camp, that it was developed too fast and I do not think people should be mistreated because they think that. After all, there has been some adverse effects for some of the people who took it (like the auto-immune disease for the…

Every death is a tragedy.

The correct null hypothesis is that in the counterfactual world where those people had gotten the virus rather than the vaccine, they would have ended up dead anyway.

Re: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2021

#90
post #64
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Janssen vaccine is vector based, not mRNA like Pfizer Comirnaty or Moderna. Although vaccinated people can be infected and even spread the virus, the disease is usually mild, amount of infectious virus and the time they are infectious is much smaller. And that is no speciality of covid immunizations, other vaccines like measles or influenza also don't prevent infection, but aim to prevent the disease. The "not fully…

> Although vaccinated people can be infected and even spread the virus, the disease is usually mild, amount of infectious virus and the time they are infectious is much smaller. I confess I haven't watched that video yet, but I believe there are not any studies that claim that "amount of infectious virus and the time they are infectious is much smaller". But I will watch it later and see if something new came up. I c…

Part of the Israeli study showed that the viral count/load of breakthrough infections was not significantly lowered compared to non-breakthrough infections.
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