Predicting the Nobel Prize

On Monday 7^th October 2013, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be announced in Stockholm, the home of the Nobel Assembly. The award, consisting of 8 million Swedish Krona (around £785,000), a gold medal, a diploma and the ‘Nobel Laureate’ esteem, is awarded every year to individuals (or groups of individuals) who have made a significant discovery in the medical sciences. In accordance with Nobel Prize rules, the process of selecting the Nobel laureates is shrouded to all but a small group of medical scientists, known as the Nobel Assembly.

Part of the scientific method is the ability to predict, based on a hypothesis. Unfortunately, there’s no mathematical model or formula that will turn anyone into Nostradamus (yet!), but nonetheless, it is always fun to see if your predictions can come true. In light of the Nobel Prize announcement in under two weeks, here are my three predictions for the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Discovery of Leptin

One possible set of winners is the duo Coleman and Friedman, two researchers who discovered leptin, a hormone that regulates body weight by suppressing appetite. Leptin, whose name comes from the Greek for ‘thin,’ is released by fat cells and inhibits the appetite by acting on receptors in the brain. This discovery is becoming increasingly significant in the light of the ‘obesity epidemic’ which is linked to a great number of other conditions, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoarthritis.

This hormone is an incredibly important piece in the puzzle that will allow us to reveal the interplay between hunger and weight control and perhaps will lead to discoveries of prophylactic drugs that can halt the rise of the obesity epidemic. The duo are strong contenders for the Nobel Prize, and most tellingly, they won the 2010 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, an award that is a strong predictor for a Nobel Laureate future, as nearly half of all winners go on to win a Nobel Prize.

The Discovery of Cell Adhesion Molecules

Another possible set of winners is the trio Hynes, Ruoslahti and Takeichi, who discovered the class of molecules that allowed cells to bind together, integrins and cadherins. These proteins are vital to multicellular lifeforms, and it is possible that without these adhesion molecules, we would never have evolved from single-celled organisms.

This discovery is just as important in the clinic as it is in evolutionary biology, as these proteins allow wounds to heal. A type of integrin is found on platelets and helps platelets to bind with the clot matrix – without these, clotting can be significantly impaired and lead to bleeding disorders which can be fatal. Increasingly, the role of cell adhesion molecules in cancer metastasis is also being elucidated. Normal, healthy cells (with few exceptions like some white blood cells) are fixed in a tissue and are unable to move. One step in the progression of cancer is metastasis – when cancer cells break away from tissue and invade others, which greatly influences a patient’s survival chances – and these proteins (or the lack of them) may play a role in the spread of cancer.

Although they have won comparatively few awards (and have not won the Albert Lasker award!), Hynes, Ruoslahti and Takeichi’s discovery of cell adhesion molecules has paved the way for research into cancer, developmental biology and many more branches of science. If previous Nobel Prize winners are anything to go by, it is the relatively simple discoveries that make the best winners, and if this trio doesn’t win this year, I would still place my money on these three winning at some point in Nobel history.

The Discovery of Histone Modifications in the Epigenetic Control of Gene Expression

If stretched out end-to-end, the DNA in each one of our cells in the form of chromosomes has an impressive length of 2 metres (around 6 feet 7 inches), taller than most human beings. So how is it that each cell in our body (except those without a nucleus) has 2 metres worth of DNA that can fit inside a nucleus with a diameter of around 6 micrometres (0.000006 metres)? This is because the DNA is folded and wrapped around proteins called histones.

Histones are more than just spools around which DNA winds. The greatest consequence of this extreme packing (which any holidaymaker would no doubt be envious of!) is that most DNA is inaccessible to the proteins and enzymes that read the DNA. Although initially thought of as just structural proteins, chemical modifications on histones actually influence which genes are switched on and off, which determines a cell’s characteristics. Histones are part of a cell’s epigenome, and the study of the epigenome, epigenetics, has taken flight in the last decade. It has become clear that the environment – diet, drugs and other factors – can influence our epigenome, giving rise to the incredible variety that we find in humans, even in those who are genetically identical, like identical twins.

The American scientists, Allis and Grunstein, are the two most influential in the field of histone modifications and epigenetic regulation and make my list of Nobel predictions because this discovery has already led to a new class of drugs that affect histone modifications. One specific example is the use of the drug Vorinostat, which inhibits a histone deacetylase (an enzyme that removes an acetyl group from histones), in the treatment of cutaneous T cell lymphoma. A myriad of epigenetic drugs based on Allis and Grunstein’s work are currently in clinical trials and will no doubt become strong members of our arsenal against cancer and other diseases where the epigenome is dysregulated.

 

Unfortunately only one Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine can be awarded this year and I would like to congratulate the real winners in advance (whether they have been contacted by the Nobel committee or not!). Let’s hope the Swedes agree with me and I wish the three teams I predicted the best of luck.

The impacts of these three findings have already made shockwaves not just in the scientific community, but also in the clinic, and I firmly believe that at some point in the future, there will be Nobel prizes awarded that will be related to these three discoveries. I hope that I do Nostradamus proud in the years to come, if not this year. You heard it here first.