Erling Norrby (Author Nobel Prizes and Nature's Surprises): DNA and the Nobel Prize

www.ibiology.org/science-and-society/discovery-of-…

Talk Overview: Erling Norrby takes us through the history of the discovery of DNA structure, starting in the 1940s and ending in 1962 when the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Watson, Crick, and Wilkins. Determining the structure of DNA involved contributions from biologists, chemists, and physicists, and was not without controversy and competition. Here, Norrby tells the story of how these scientists’ knowledge came together to make one of the greatest discoveries in all of biology.

Speaker Biography: Erling Norrby was a professor of Virology for 25 years at the Karolinska Institute, the School of Medicine in Stockholm, and during all these years he was heavily involved in the selection process for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. He then served as permanent Secretary at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for six years. In this position he had an overriding role for the prizes in physics and chemistry and was a member of the Board of the Nobel Foundation. Currently, Norrby researches the Nobel Archives, which are opened for scholarly research 50 years after a prize is awarded. He has written two books about his research: Nobel Prizes and Life Sciences, and Nobel Prizes and Nature’s Surprises.