I’M not sure I’m really a believer in luck, but either way, I don’t win things very often. Honestly, I am super-excited to win a tray in the meat raffles at the local club. And so, I can’t even imagine what it must be like to win something as big as a Nobel Prize.
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Of course, winning a Nobel Prize has nothing to do with luck.
The past week has seen some amazing scientific discoveries being celebrated, the culmination of decades of hard work.
In chemistry the prizes have gone to Frances Arnold, George Smith and Sir Gregory Winter, each for using directed evolution of organisms to produce new enzymes.
Arnold has used the process to create more environmentally friendly enzymes for use in manufacturing, while Smith and Winter have used the process to create new drugs.
The prizes in physics were all about lasers. Arthur Ashkin received the award for his development of optical tweezers – or a way of using light to move tiny molecules.
Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou were also winners for their method of creating the shortest but most intense laser pulses ever – a technique that is now being used in eye surgery around the world.
The physiology or medicine prizes were awarded to James Allison and Tasuku Honjo, who have both developed methods of allowing our own immune cells to fight cancer – discoveries that have already been used to help treat some advanced forms of cancer.
This year though, the attention has not just been on the amazing science being carried out, but also on the issue of gender equality in the awards.
Since the Nobel prizes in science were first awarded in 1901, only a handful of women have been counted among the winners.
This year, Strickland became only the third woman to take home the prize in physics, while Frances Arnold is now one of only five women to have claimed the prize in chemistry. Women have fared slightly better in the prize for physiology or medicine, with 12 women having been presented with the award, although there were none among the awardees this year.
All together, women account for only 3 per cent of Nobel Prize winners, a shockingly low number which reflects the systematic biases faced by women in science.
Two women taking home prizes this year is a step in the right direction, but I’d love to see the day when that number is 50 per cent.
Dr Mary McMillan is a lecturer at the University of New England’s School of Science & Technology.
