The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 • Hacker News Board

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#91

Post by est31 » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 10:51 PM UTC

sampo wrote: post #65

est31 wrote: post #20

The discovery is beyond doubt deserving of the award. It was also awarded only 8 years after the publication. It's a bit sad though that Virginijus Šikšnys didn't get any credit for the discovery, because his paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginijus_%C5%A0ik%C5%A1nys#P... Edit: The Nobel award paper writes this on his findings: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2…

> paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell Cell rejected an almost-nobel-worthy paper? Is this business as usual? Would they maybe have got the nobel price, if they had submitted to a lesser journal instead of Cell? Can we make a rule of thumb, that in general you should submit your groundbreaking work to the most prestigious journal possible, but if you feel your work is of nobel caliber, then play it sa…

It's kinda common tbh.

https://www.sciencealert.com/these-8-papers-were-rejected-be...

Usually major breakthroughs are rare and extraordinary and might seem too off the norm for major journals.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#92

Post by yesbabyyes » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

samatman wrote: post #89

rjtavares wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense to give it to Chemestry first, but my guess is they'll win both.

That would be an interesting development! I believe that to date, Madame Curie stands alone in having won Nobel Prizes in more than one field.

Linus Pauling too (perhaps even more notable, as he shared none of the prizes). But neither won prizes in different fields for the same work, which would be quite unexpected.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#93

Post by russellbeattie » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 11:08 PM UTC

pseudolus wrote: post #3

There's a documentary on Netflix "Human Nature" that discusses the history of CRISPR and features interviews with both Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna. [0][1][2] [0] https://www.netflix.com/title/81220944 [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1UkCfDnn6c [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Nature_(2019_film)

I haven't seen it yet, but there's a new Nova episode about CRISPR I've been meaning to watch: "CRISPR Gene-Editing Reality Check".

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/gene-editing-reality-che...

(Does Berkeley still have parking spots reserved for Nobel Laureates? They'll have to add a new one...)

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#94

Post by bootcampwhere » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 11:43 PM UTC

tuxxy wrote: post #27

est31 wrote: post #20

The discovery is beyond doubt deserving of the award. It was also awarded only 8 years after the publication. It's a bit sad though that Virginijus Šikšnys didn't get any credit for the discovery, because his paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginijus_%C5%A0ik%C5%A1nys#P... Edit: The Nobel award paper writes this on his findings: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2…

Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive? My partner is a molecular biologist and she can't collaborate with anyone outside of her lab because of the fear that they collaborators will take their research before they get a chance to publish it. It seems this method of performing groundbreaking research and science is horrifically detrimental to our collective progress. There's no reason for t…

I did my phd I crispr. Because science is broken. When I was doing my.phd I worked on a project for a year and a half only for my professor to tell me that our collaborator was going to "take it over". I lost all my work and had to "give" the project to a student in his lab. They made some deal. It is sick, academic research is broken.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#95

Post by bootcampwhere » Wed, Oct 07, 2020, 11:47 PM UTC

sampo wrote: post #65

est31 wrote: post #20

The discovery is beyond doubt deserving of the award. It was also awarded only 8 years after the publication. It's a bit sad though that Virginijus Šikšnys didn't get any credit for the discovery, because his paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginijus_%C5%A0ik%C5%A1nys#P... Edit: The Nobel award paper writes this on his findings: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2…

> paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell Cell rejected an almost-nobel-worthy paper? Is this business as usual? Would they maybe have got the nobel price, if they had submitted to a lesser journal instead of Cell? Can we make a rule of thumb, that in general you should submit your groundbreaking work to the most prestigious journal possible, but if you feel your work is of nobel caliber, then play it sa…

Yes, very common. Bullshit gets published and great work is ignored EVERY DAY. Academic research is broken.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#96

Post by greenduck » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

tuxxy wrote: post #27

est31 wrote: post #20

The discovery is beyond doubt deserving of the award. It was also awarded only 8 years after the publication. It's a bit sad though that Virginijus Šikšnys didn't get any credit for the discovery, because his paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginijus_%C5%A0ik%C5%A1nys#P... Edit: The Nobel award paper writes this on his findings: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2…

Why is academia (at least in the physical sciences) so competitive? My partner is a molecular biologist and she can't collaborate with anyone outside of her lab because of the fear that they collaborators will take their research before they get a chance to publish it. It seems this method of performing groundbreaking research and science is horrifically detrimental to our collective progress. There's no reason for t…

Maybe it's field specific. In my subfield of physics, I've collaborated with three other groups across the US without any fear of people running off with our work.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#97

Post by haihaibye » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 2:44 AM UTC

The_rationalist wrote: post #41

What's missing for reseting all / most of the DNA from an organ/a whole body in mammals?? Just reseting the DNA repair section of the DNA of a whole organ would enable massively slowing the ageing/cancer risks of said organ/body! It is the key towards rejuvenation and preventing cancer, heizeimer and most diseases! I can't find a good resource on why this is not currently possible and where can I track scientific inc…

You have trillions of cells, each that contain billions of bases. Each cell can go wrong in its own way, and what you have to patch it back to is different for every person

All of these steps are currently not possible:

* establish a perfect sequence for an individual

* find mutations non-destructively (ie cell survives)

* send a specific edit to a specific cell in live animal

* perform just that modification (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-target_genome_editing)

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#98

Post by jtitor » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

Ovah wrote: post #23

ckemere wrote: post #4

What about Feng Zhang?

I'm open to pushback. Nobel prizes usually reward basic science over applications thereof. My understanding is that Feng Zhang didn't discover anything fundamental. Sure, he was first with applying CRISPR to eucaryotic cells. Which indeed is an impressive feat: not because it was a huge theoretical leap but because of his labs strong work ethic managing to do so very quickly.

I think many people have similar ideas around the same time: Charpentier, Doudna, Zhang, Šikšnys etc. Zhang is the lastest to publish the result, but got the furtherest along in applying to human. I don't think anyone believes Zhang's work is based off others.

Re: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020

#99

Post by ponker » Thu, Oct 08, 2020, 7:55 AM UTC

est31 wrote: post #20

The discovery is beyond doubt deserving of the award. It was also awarded only 8 years after the publication. It's a bit sad though that Virginijus Šikšnys didn't get any credit for the discovery, because his paper sent over a month earlier was rejected by Cell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginijus_%C5%A0ik%C5%A1nys#P... Edit: The Nobel award paper writes this on his findings: https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2…

Because of the optics of giving the award exclusively to two women. If Siksnys was a woman she would have been the third winner.