Nobel Prize

Gerty Cori uncovered the process of cellular energy storage and release, answering one of the most fundamental questions about how the human body works. In so doing, she and her husband and lifelong research partner, Carl, transformed the study of biology, proving that the clarity of molecular chemistry could and should be applied to the opaque mechanisms of biology.

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For most of her career, Maria Goeppert Mayer worked “just for the fun of doing physics,” without pay or status or a tenured position. She was 58 before she became a full professor. And yet she made major contributions to the growing understanding of nuclear physics, including the revelatory nuclear shell model.

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With the drugs that she created, Gertrude Elion fulfilled her life’s mission: to alleviate human suffering. Beyond the individual drugs she discovered, she pioneered a new, more scientific approach to drug development that forever altered – and accelerated – medical research.

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“Captured for life by chemistry and by crystals,” as she described it, Dorothy Hodgkin turned a childhood interest in crystals into the ground-breaking use of X-ray crystallography to “see” the molecules of penicillin, vitamin B12 and insulin. Her work not only allowed researchers to better understand and manufacture life-saving substances, it also made crystallography an indispensable scientific tool.

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Ever since she was a girl, Ada Yonath has set herself seemingly impossible goals, and then figured out how to reach them, step by step. As a young scientist she took on a challenge that others considered hopeless – mapping the structure of the ribosome – and persevered for decades until she succeeded. Her determination and ingenuity allowed researchers to see and understand the complex and crucial molecule. And since the ribosome is a major bacterial target for antibiotics, her work has led to new antibiotics and a better understanding of antibiotic resistance.

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Linda Buck was fascinated by one seemingly simple question: how does our sense of smell work? Once she started to look for the answer, she didn’t let it go. She followed the olfactory process step by step to the very heart of what makes us human: our perceptions, preferences and memories.

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Rita Levi-Montalcini began her scientific career in danger, as a Jew in Fascist Italy. She ended it in triumph, as the neuroembryologist who co-discovered nerve growth factor, a prominent figure in Italian politics, and an active researcher and mentor until her death at the age of 103.

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Throughout her career, Barbara McClintock studied the cytogenetics of maize, making discoveries so far beyond the understanding of the time that other scientists essentially ignored her work for more than a decade. But she persisted, trusting herself and the evidence under her microscope.

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Quiz answers December 2025 Quiz question The award ceremonyEvery year on 10 December, all Nobel Prize laureates receive their diplomas and medals at the award ceremonies. From whom do the laureates in Stockholm receive their prizes?  Quiz answer The correct answer is HM the King of Sweden. you can read more about this year’s Nobel…

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Speech by Professor , Chairman of the Board of Directors, The Nobel Foundation. (Translation of the Swedish text.) Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of the Nobel Foundation, I welcome you to the 1996 Prize Award Ceremony. I would especially like to welcome this year’s laureates to the Nobel festivities in…

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