2014 Nobel Prize in Medicine Winners Announced Monday Oct 06,2014

 

 A screen presents the winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, U.S.-British scientist John O'Keefe and Norwegian husband and wife Edvard Moser and May-Britt Moser for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain, at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday Oct 06,2014

 

U.S.-British scientist John O’Keefe and Norwegian married couple May—Britt Moser and Edvard Moser won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday Oct 06,2014 for discovering the brain’s positioning system

This “inner GPS” helps explain how the brain creates “a map of the space surrounding us and how we can navigate our way through a complex environment,” the Nobel Assembly said.

O’Keefe, of University College London, discovered the first component of this positioning system in 1971 when he found that a certain type of nerve cell was always activated when a rat was at a certain place in a room. 

Thirty--four years later May-Britt and Edvard Moser, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, identified another type of nerve cell that generates a coordinate system for precise path—finding, the assembly said. 

It said that knowledge about the brain’s positioning system may “help us understand the mechamism underpinning the devastating spatial memory loss” that affects people with Alzheimer’s disease. 

2014 Nobel Prize Announcements

• Medicine: John O’Keefe, Edvard Moser, May-Britt Moser - Oct 06,2014
• › Physics: On October 7.
• › Chemistry: On October 8.
• › Literature: On October 9.
• › Peace: On October 10.
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences: On October 13

List of 2013 Nobel Prize winners

For Medicine and Physiology: James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman, Thomas C. Südhof

The Nobel committee said their research on “vesicle traffic” the transport system of our cells helped scientists understand how “cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time” inside cells.

For Physics: François Englert, Peter W. Higgs

They were awarded the prize for the theoretical discovery of a mechanism that contributes to our understanding of the origin of mass of subatomic particles.

For Chemistry: Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt, Arieh Warshel

The Nobel Prize was awarded to them for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.

For Literature: Alice Munro

Canadian writer Alice Munro, a thorough, but forgiving documenter of the human spirit, won the Nobel Prize in literature for being a “master of the contemporary short story."

For Peace: The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was awareded the peace prize “for its extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons”. 

For Economics: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2013 was awarded to them " for their empirical analysis of asset prices."