Nobel Prize shows pull of United States

25 Nobel prizes have been won by people from Africa. GRAPHIC | MICHAEL MOSOTA | NATION NEWSPLEX

What you need to know:

  • From 1901 to 2015, 35 Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, or almost 60 per cent of all who moved to another country, chose the United States, while 20 per cent chose the United Kingdom.
  • Since 1901, only three Nobel Prizes for Medicine have been won by people born on the continent, and all three were from South Africa.
  • Dr Odingo is sceptical about the chances of a Nobel Prize in the sciences being earned from Kenyan research, partly because very little money is available for research in universities.

One of the winners of the Nobel Prize for Medicine has carried on a trend long known among Nobel Laureates − moving to the United States.

Dr William C. Campbell, who was born in Ireland, moved to the United States to get his PhD at the University of Wisconsin. When he won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, he was working at Drew University in New Jersey.

On the other hand, Satoshi Omura, with whom Dr Campbell shared half the Nobel Prize, and Dr Youyou Tu from China, who won the other half, were working in their home countries of Japan and China respectively at the time of the award.

“You must be a top scientist dedicated to your work, and working with a top team of researchers and then you must publish your work so that other scientists can look at it and comment on it, favourably or otherwise.”

Research by Nation Newsplex shows that from 1901 to 2015, a significant proportion of Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, 30 per cent, had moved from their countries of origin to a different country when they won the award.

From 1901 to 2015, 35 Nobel Prize winners in Medicine, or almost 60 per cent of all who moved to another country, chose the United States, while 20 per cent chose the United Kingdom.

According to the Nobel Foundation, 257 Nobel Laureates, or 30 cent of all the individual winners of the Nobel Prize since 1901, were born in the United States.

The United Kingdom is next with 93 or 11 per cent, followed by Germany and France with 80 or nine per cent and 53 or six per cent respectively.

These four countries alone comprise 56 percent of all prize winners in all categories. Other countries with many winners include Sweden with 28, Russia 27, Poland 26, Japan 21 and Italy 19.

The global trend in prizes for medicine is especially evident in Africa. Since 1901, only three Nobel Prizes for Medicine have been won by people born on the continent, and all three were from South Africa.

Even those three winners – Max Theiler (1951), Allan Cormack (1979) and Sydney Bremmer (2002) – were living in the US when they won the prize.

Dr Tu is the 12th woman to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine. So far, women comprise five per cent of all laureates.

Women have won one Nobel Prize in economic sciences, two prizes in Physics, four prizes in Chemistry, 13 in Literature and 16 Peace prizes, for a total of 48 out of the 867 Laureates.

VERY LITTLE MONEY

A total of 25 Nobel Prizes have been won by people born in Africa, which adds up to three per cent of all the 867 laureates. Of these, 11 were for peace, six were for literature, and three each were for medicine and chemistry, and two were for physics. The Nobel Prize in economics is yet to be won by a person born in Africa.

Prof Wangari Maathai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 is the only individual Kenyan to have won a Nobel Prize to date.

However, Prof Richard Samson Odingo, a professor of Geography at the University of Nairobi, was vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when that organisation won the Nobel Prize jointly with Al Gore in 2007.

Although it was the then chairman of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, who received the prize, Prof Odingo travelled to Olso, Norway, for the ceremony.

He recalls there was a “big international ceremony”, with renowned artistes like UB40. During the award ceremony the Norwegian Royal family was there, and afterwards guests were hosted to lunch by the US ambassador to Norway. The Norwegian government had also paid for their flight, he says.

But Dr Odingo is sceptical about the chances of a Nobel Prize in the sciences being earned from Kenyan research, partly because very little money is available for research in universities. The support that exists is not aimed at helping scientists produce “earth shaking results,” he says.

MORE COLLABORATIVE

“You must be a top scientist dedicated to your work, and working with a top team of researchers and then you must publish your work so that other scientists can look at it and comment on it, favourably or otherwise.”

Statistics on the Nobel Prize supports his view. The data shows that award-winning research is more collaborative, with many working together despite being in separate countries.

Since 1960 only seven Nobel prizes in medicine have been won by one Laureate only. As of 2015, 31 Nobel Prizes have been shared between two people, while 37 have been shared between three people.

Nobel Prize winners from Africa have come from 10 out of the continent’s 54 recognised states. Nine winners were born in South Africa, the highest of any country, followed by Egypt with six and Algeria and Liberia with two each.

Morocco, Madagascar, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Ghana all have one Nobel Prize winner.