Inventions and research that could win the Nobel Prize this year

In just a few days, outstanding scientific discoveries and research will be honored at the 2024 Nobel Prize announcement ceremonies. This award was established by Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago to honor groundbreaking works in science.

According to CNN , predicting the Nobel Prize winner is not easy because the shortlist and nominees remain secret. Documents related to the process of choosing the winner will be kept secret for 50 years.

However, over the years, many inventions and studies have been highly appreciated by experts and considered worthy of the prestigious Nobel Prize. Below are some typical studies in the fields of chemistry, biology, and medicine.

The first human genome map

In 1990, the human genome project was initiated and completed in 2003. The project involved thousands of researchers in the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan and China.

The discovery of the human genome has had a profound impact on biology, medicine and many other fields. However, according to CNN , one of the reasons the project may not win a Nobel Prize is because of the large number of people involved in it.

According to Nobel's will in 1895, the Nobel Prize can only honor a maximum of three people per award. In today's highly collaborative scientific research, this criterion has become a barrier that prevents some groundbreaking research involving many participants from winning a Nobel Prize.

Research in the treatment of obesity

Globally, one in eight people are obese, a figure that has doubled since 1990. Against this backdrop, the development of weight-loss drugs that mimic the hormone GLP-1 has shaken up medicine for years.

A facility that produces injection pens to help treat obesity. (Photo: BLOOMBERG).

The drug, which lowers blood sugar and curbs appetite, has the potential to usher in a new era in the treatment of obesity and related conditions such as type 2 diabetes.

The three scientists who developed the drug are Associate Professor Svetlana Mojsov, Professor Joel Habener and Professor Lotte Bjerre Knudsen. The research has won the 2024 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.

Applied Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming human life at an unprecedented rate.

According to David Pendlebury, head of research analytics at the Clarivate Institute for Scientific Information (USA), AI is a field that many scientists are interested in and has many outstanding researches. However, only a few studies are worthy of winning the Nobel Prize. Mr. Pendlebury determines individuals who are "Nobel-worthy" by analyzing the frequency with which other scientists have cited their important scientific papers over the years.

Two prominent scientists among them are Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, the inventors of Google DeepMind's AlphaFold Protein Structure Database – an AI program that deciphers the 3D structure of proteins from amino acid sequences. The database is used by more than 2 million researchers worldwide.

Since the two scientists' landmark paper was published in 2021, it has been cited more than 13,000 times, which Pendlebury called 'an extraordinary number.' Out of 61 million scientific papers, only about 500 have been cited more than 10,000 times.

Mr. Demis Hassabis (left) and Mr. John Jumper received the award at the Breakthrough Awards ceremony in April. (Photo: GETTY IMAGE).

Jumper and Hassabis have won the 2023 Lasker Prize and the 2024 Breakthrough Prize. Pendlebury said the two scientists, along with David Baker, director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who laid the foundation for AlphaFold, deserve to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry in the future.

Research on intestinal microbiota

We are not alone in our own bodies. Trillions of bacteria live on and in the human body, collectively known as the human microbiome.

With advances in gene sequencing over the past two decades, scientists have been able to better understand what these bacteria do, how they communicate with each other and interact with human cells, especially in the gut.

Mr Pendlebury believes this field of research deserves a Nobel Prize, with Dr Jeffrey Gordon being a pioneer in the field.

Gordon has been working to understand the human gut microbiome and how it shapes human health, starting with lab studies on mice. He is the lead researcher on the study that discovered the link between gut microbiome and malnutrition, which affects nearly 200 million children worldwide.

Additionally, he is developing food interventions to improve gut health.

Research on the causes of cancer

In the 1970s, scientists discovered that cancer sometimes runs in families. However, at that time, for breast cancer, many people did not acknowledge that genetic factors could cause the disease.

At that time, with a background in research on the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees, Mary-Claire King – now a professor of medicine and at the University of Washington School of Medicine – took a new approach to the problem.

Mary-Claire King and President Barack Obama at the National Medal of Science ceremony at the White House in May 2016. (Photo: GETTY IMAGES).

Accordingly, Ms. King spent 17 years discovering and determining the role of BRCA1 gene mutations in breast and ovarian cancer.

The discovery has enabled doctors to identify women at high risk of breast cancer through genetic testing. It also helps to suggest steps to reduce the risk, such as additional screening and preventive surgery.