Nobel prizes 2018 

Nobel prizes 2018 

  1. PHYSICS: Arthur Ashkin, Donna Strickland,Gérard Mourou have been awarded with nobel prize in physics 2018.
  • Arthur Ashkin invented optical tweezers that grab particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells with their laser beam fingers.
  • Optical tweezers make it possible for scientists to hold, observe and move tiny objects with “laser beam fingers.” That means laboratories can examine and manipulate viruses, bacteria and other living cells without damaging them.
  • Donna Strickland with Gérard Mourou was awarded the 2018 prize jointly, for their work on generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.
  • Strickland and Mourou’s newly invented technique, called chirped pulse amplification, CPA, soon became standard for subsequent high-intensity lasers.
  • It has made it possible to cut or drill holes in materials and living matter incredibly precisely. Its uses include the millions of corrective eye surgeries that are conducted every year using the sharpest of laser beams.
  • It is for the first time in 55 years that the award has been has been awarded to a woman.
  • Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, recognized for her co-discovery of radiation, followed by Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963 for discoveries about nuclear structure.
  1. Medicine:
  • 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine – James P. Allison and Tasuku  Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.
  • Allison and Honjo showed how different strategies for inhibiting the brakes on the immune system can be used in the treatment of cancer.
  • James P. Allison studied a known protein that functions as a brake on the immune system. He realized the potential of releasing the brake and thereby unleashing our immune cells to attack tumors. He then developed this concept into a brand new approach for treating patients.
  • In parallel, Tasuku Honjo discovered a protein on immune cells and, after careful exploration of its function, eventually revealed that it also operates as a brake, but with a different mechanism of action. Therapies based on his discovery proved to be strikingly effective in the fight against cancer.
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