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> October 15, 1999:
Hour One: Nobel Roundup
This week, an annual rite of fall took place. (No, not Columbus Day!) Early in the morning on Monday and Tuesday, several innocent, unassuming scientists were awoken by a telephone call from Sweden. And for a brief time after that call, those scientists enjoyed a little peace and quiet before the Nobel Prize winners were announced publicly, and a deluge of attention began. | Gunter Blobel, a cell biologist at New York's Rockefeller University, was awarded the prize for Physiology or Medicine. His work focuses on working to understand cellular "trafficking" -- how proteins make their way through membranes surrounding the interior parts of a cell and how cells know where to deliver a protein within the cell.
Blobel discovered that each protein contains a signal (often described as an "address" or a "ZIP code") that helps guide the protein across membranes - and that makes sure that proteins intended for the mitochondria doesn't get dropped off in the nucleus instead. His work is thought to have potential for helping treat diseases in which proteins don't get correctly handled by the body. We'll talk to him and find out more. | 
Image ©The Nobel Foundation, Urban Frank | Ahmed Zewail, a professor of chemical physics at Caltech in Pasedena, California, was awarded the prize in Chemistry. Zewail is regarded as one of the fathers of a branch of chemistry known as "femtochemistry" -- reactions that take place very very quickly, on the scale of femtoseconds (0.000000000000001 seconds). Using a fast laser as a "flash bulb", Zewail was able to see signals left by vibrating molecules as they went through a reaction. The spectra that he obtained revealed intermediates - chemicals formed, then used up, while a reaction is progressing from one thing to another. Zewail's experiment helps to explain the way that molecules react, and the mechanisms that they use - information that can be used to explain why some reactions happen easily, while others are much harder. We'll talk to Dr. Zewail about his work.
Gerardus 't Hooft, a professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands, and Martinus J.G. Veltman, a Professor Emeritus there, were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in developing the math behind particle physics. Their work helped firm up the "standard model" of particle physics, in which particles like quarks and leptons interact with the electro-weak and strong forces through photons, three field particles, and gluons. We'll talk to 1979 Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg about their research, particle accelerators, and what comes next in the particle physics world.
Guests:
Ahmed Zewail
1999 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry
Linus Pauling Chair of Chemical Physics
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, California
Gunter Blobel
1999 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
John D Rockefeller, Jr. Professor
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
The Rockefeller University
New York, New York
Steven Weinberg
1979 Nobel Laureate in Physics
Professor
Department of Physics
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
Information from the Nobel Foundation:
---prize for Physiology or Medicine
---prize for Chemistry
---prize for Physics
---Quicktime VR tours of the Nobel buildings
Press Release from Rockefeller University about Dr. Blobel's work
Press Release from Caltech about Dr. Zewail's work
Press Release from University of Utrecht about Drs. Veltman and 't Hooft's work
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- This segment produced by:
Charles Bergquist
Web producer:
Charles Bergquist
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