Notable Nobels

This episode covers the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to Robert Koch. The Nobel Assembly chose to give Koch the award “for his investigations and discoveries in relation to tuberculosis”. Koch's key contribution was the development of a set of criteria for experimentally proving that a particular microorganism causes disease. These criteria are known as Koch’s Postu...

This episode covers the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran. The Nobel Assembly chose to give Laveran the award “in recognition of his work on the role played by protozoa in causing diseases". The protozoa that Laveran is most known for is the malaria parasite. Topics include Laveran’s identification of the parasite that causes malaria, a...

This episode covers the second Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to Sir Ronald Ross in 1902. The Nobel Assembly chose to give Ross the award “for his work on malaria, by which he has shown how it enters the organism and thereby has laid the foundation for successful research on this disease and methods of combating it.” Topics include a bit about malaria disease, the work Ro...

Welcome! This first episode covers the very first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was awarded to Emil von Behring in 1901. The Nobel Assembly chose to give Behring the first award "for his work on serum therapy, especially its application against diphtheria”. Topics include how Behring used serum therapy to treat diphtheria, how serum therapy is currently being used in the ongoing SAR...