a way to recognize discoveries that have been relevant in biomedicine is the awarding of prizes to the researchers involved in those findings. The Nobel Prize for Medicine in Physiology or Medicine is one of the most prestigious, but others like the Breakthrough Prize or even the BBVA Foundation award Frontiers of Knowledge are also good indicators of outstanding results in this area. For Nobel prizes, there are even computer “predictors” that calculate the statistical probability of winning it. This week the winner of the Nobel Prize in biomedical sciences has been announced and I would like to briefly summarize the trajectory of the last five concessions to explain a little the tendencies in this field.
In 2018 the winners were Tasuku Honjo and James P. Allison for their discoveries regarding the role of the immune system in the regulation of cancer. These researchers not only made a decisive contribution to characterizing the biomolecules (receptors and ligands) involved in the defense of our body once morest foreign agents (microorganisms and cells foreign to us), but their data have been decisive in introducing immunotherapy as a typical cancer treatment in hospitals. Truly important have been the clinical responses seen in melanoma and lung cancer, and we are now seeking extend them to many other tumor types. And not only by using drugs, but also by redirecting and modifying our immune cells so that they effectively recognize and attack the transformed cells.
In 2019, the winners were William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe y Gregg L. Semenza for their discoveries regarding how cells sense and adapt to the availability of oxygen. The results of it have had enormous consequences not only for understand oxygen metabolism in health and disease, but also how we can use it in new therapies. The HIF protein is the one that commands these processes, and hypoxia processes (lack of oxygen) occur in many carcinogenic stages. One way of attacking a tumor, which is to cut off its oxygen support by blocking the arrival of new blood vessels, is what antiangiogenic drugs do, which have also had great applicability avoiding vascular proliferations in the eye that might be associated with blindness.
In 2020 the winners were Harvey James, Michael Houghton y Charles M. Rice for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Viruses are beings with great evolutionary success; when we have switched off they will continue here. In terms of human disease they are causing multiple pathologies (from polio to covid) and there are viruses with a particular appetite for the liver, as is the case of the hepatitis A, B and C viruses. Vaccines have been effective in the first two cases, but for hepatitis C it has been in recent years there is a curative treatment for those infected. It happened relatively recently and probably didn’t get the media attention it deserved.
In 2021 the award went to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for the discovery of the receptors for touch and temperature. Perhaps, until this last year, it was the discovery most called “basic research”, that is, without a clear practical application. But from this type of science many treatments have been derived in other cases, so surely we will see it in this case as well. From families with genetic alterations in these receptors, to ways of adapting human beings to harsh or extreme environments, or therapies associated with these stimuli.
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And finally, this 2022 the winner is Svante Pääbo for his discoveries on extinct hominin genomes and human evolution. This scientist has almost been the creator of a new discipline, paleogenomics, and his data tells us that modern humans we have inserted fragments of other human species that preceded us and they have been studied in detail by your group.
Hopefully this type of award motivates our young people to have more scientific vocations, but remembering that the important thing is knowledge and not recognition. We need this new generation of researchers and we must give them the opportunity to have the proper means to carry out their work.
