The journey to a Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2023

She overcame resistance and demotion

Katalin Karikó never lost focus, doubling-down on her work to harness mRNA for new vaccines and therapies. 
Kariko in 2005
  • Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1992

    The importance of luck

    Read Edmond H. Fischer’s banquet speech: “no success has owed more to serendipity than ours.”
  • Economic sciences prize 2023

    Detective work

    Claudia Goldin took use of her curiosity in the work that earned her an economic sciences prize.
  • Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012

    Failure as a chance

    Shinya Yamanaka on how he learnt to see failure as an opportunity.
  • Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1989

    Interests outside the lab

    Harold Varmus knows how to keep motivation levels up during times of difficulty.

A memorable moment

Economic sciences prize 2025

“I said, ‘Look, Peter, we might get a Nobel with this’”

In 1992, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt presented a mathematical model for what is called creative destruction: when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out. Listen to the 2025 economic sciences laureate talk about the moment he knew that he and his co-laureate were on to something groundbreaking.

Women who changed science

Nobel Prize-awarded work

Imagine life without these discoveries

From the glow of blue LEDs to the ‘miracle’ of IVF. These six discoveries not only improve our daily lives, but save them and help create new ones.
Read more

Podcast series: Nobel Prize Conversations

Revealing secrets on a tiny scale

Microscopes play a key role in advancing research, in part thanks to the work of Nobel Prize laureates whose breakthroughs have allowed the tool to evolve.
Read more

Meet the laureate

“Writing my thesis was the worst time of my life”

Tim Hunt, Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine 2001, met with PhD student Paulina Tan and spoke about what to do when you have ‘scientist’s block’, the difficulties of research and what caused the Nobel Prize laureate to pursue a career in science. Listen in on their conversation.

Discover more from the series Students meet Nobel Prize laureate

Family matters

Meet the families with Nobel Prizes.
Read the story

Aage Bohr and Niels Bohr on the occasion of the defence of Aage's doctoral thesis, 1954.

Photo: Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen.

Five spellbinding works by Nobel Prize laureates

Much like fairy tales, magical realism novels blur the lines between fantasy and reality.
Learn more

High hopes for quantum technologies

Applications of quantum technologies are anticipated to improve our daily lives and contribute to solving global challenges.

The unseen enemy: navigating antimicrobial resistance

The hunt is on to find new antibiotics with the potential to save millions of lives.

More Nobel Prize-awarded work in medicine

Nobel Prize-awarded breakthroughs

A century of life-changing discoveries

Electronic devices help us in our daily lives, while innovations in medicine make life more manageable for people with chronic conditions.
Read more