The Nobel Prize is an award given annually (with some exceptions) to individuals, groups or organizations who have made outstanding contributions to humanity in physics, chemistry, literature, medicine or physiology. Alfred Nobel, from Sweden, is credited with establishing the Nobel Prize, and he donated a significant amount of his wealth to the organization in his last will. He was an inventor, entrepreneur, chemist and writer and his different interests are reflected by the various awards. Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded a total of 603 times (including the Prize in Economic Sciences) and only 57 times to women.
This year, American Andrea Ghez and two other scientists, Roger Penrose and Reinhard Genzel, received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of the Milky Way. This object is actually a black hole with the mass of 4 million suns. Since it has such a huge mass and is packed into a relatively small space, its field of gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from it. This means black holes are only detectable by studying how the matter moves around them. In light of this (get it?), scientists feared Andrea’s experiments were impossible and not worth her time. The telescope images and data were hard to interpret, but she persevered and found evidence to support the existence of the black hole, again confirming the predictions of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. Her studies and successes also fueled the development of new technologies and will inspire future astronomers to not take ‘no’ for an answer.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was also awarded to two women this year, Emmanuelle Charpentier from France and Jennifer A. Doudna from the United States. Working across the Atlantic, they created a method known as CRISPR-cas9 which allows scientists to remove specific disease-causing genes in the DNA of plants, animals and microorganisms.
The women hope their gene editing tools, called, “molecular scissors,” will be used for good, to help eradicate some genetic diseases, create innovative crops and new medical treatments. Charpentier also hopes their research and careers will send an encouraging message to other young women who want to pursue science. Their research was published in 2012.
Overall, these outstanding women empower young girls and set an example to show what is possible. They also serve as inspiration to the scientific community and their studies will be the foundation for future science that is beyond what we can imagine now. These women should remind us there is always more out there, always more we can do and always a reason to wonder.
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