Structural Biology and Nobel Prizes
The Nobel Prize highlights achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and for peace. Since its inception, many awards have recognized achievements made in molecular biology, structural biology, and related research. Molecule of the Month articles offer a starting point to explore these Prizes.
Myoglobin was the first protein visualized in 3D by X-ray crystallography, laying the foundation for a new era of biological understanding. For this discovery, John Kendrew and Max Perutz shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
| Year | Category | Prize | Feature Article |
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| 2024 | Chemistry | David Baker "for computational protein design" Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper ”for protein structure prediction” |
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| 2023 | Physiology or Medicine | Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman "for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19" |
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| 2022 | Chemistry | Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, K. Barry Sharpless "for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry" |
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| 2021 | Physiology or Medicine | David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian "for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch" |
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| 2020 | Chemistry | Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna "for the development of a method for genome editing" |
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| 2020 | Physiology or Medicine | Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice "for the discovery of hepatitis C virus" |
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| 2019 | Physiology or Medicine | William G. Kaelin Jr., Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, Gregg L. Semenza "for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability” |
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| 2018 | Chemistry | Frances H. Arnold "for the directed evolution of enzymes" George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter ”for the phage display of peptides and antibodies” |
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| 2018 | Physiology or Medicine | James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo "for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation" |
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| 2017 | Physiology or Medicine | Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, Michael W. Young "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm" |
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| 2016 | Physiology or Medicine | Yoshinori Ohsumi "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy" |
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| 2015 | Physiology or Medicine | William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura "for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites" Youyou Tu "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria" |
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| 2015 | Chemistry | Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar "for mechanistic studies of DNA repair" |
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| 2014 | Chemistry | Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy" |
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| 2013 | Physiology or Medicine | James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells" |
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| 2012 | Chemistry | Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka "for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors" |
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| 2011 | Physiology or Medicine | Bruce A. Beutler and Jules A. Hoffmann "for their discoveries concerning the activation of innate immunity" Ralph M. Steinman "for his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity" |
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| 2009 | Chemistry | Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome" |
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| 2008 | Physiology or Medicine | Harald zur Hausen "for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer" Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier "for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus" |
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| 2008 | Chemistry | Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP" |
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| 2006 | Physiology or Medicine | Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello "for their discovery of RNA interference - gene silencing by double-stranded RNA" |
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| 2006 | Chemistry | Roger D. Kornberg "for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription" |
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| 2005 | Physiology or Medicine | Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren "for their discovery of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease" |
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| 2004 | Chemistry | Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose "for the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation" |
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| 2003 | Chemistry | "for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes" Peter Agre "for the discovery of water channels" Roderick MacKinnon "for structural and mechanistic studies of ion channels" |
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| 2002 | Physiology or Medicine | Sydney Brenner, H. Robert Horvitz and John E. Sulston "for their discoveries concerning genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death'" |
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| 1998 | Physiology or Medicine | Robert F. Furchgott, Louis J. Ignarro and Ferid Murad "for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system" |
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| 1997 | Physiology or Medicine | Stanley B. Prusiner "for his discovery of Prions - a new biological principle of infection" |
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| 1997 | Chemistry | Paul D. Boyer and John E. Walker "for their elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)" Jens C. Skou "for the first discovery of an ion-transporting enzyme, Na+, K+ -ATPase" |
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| 1996 | Physiology or Medicine | Peter C. Doherty and Rolf M. Zinkernagel "for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence" |
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| 1994 | Physiology or Medicine | Alfred G. Gilman and Martin Rodbell "for their discovery of G-proteins and the role of these proteins in signal transduction in cells" |
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| 1993 | Physiology or Medicine | Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp "for their discoveries of split genes" |
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| 1992 | Physiology or Medicine | Edmond H. Fischer and Edwin G. Krebs "for their discoveries concerning reversible protein phosphorylation as a biological regulatory mechanism" |
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| 1989 | Physiology or Medicine | J. Michael Bishop and Harold E. Varmus "for their discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes" |
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| 1989 | Chemistry | Sidney Altman and Thomas R. Cech "for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA" |
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| 1988 | Physiology or Medicine | Sir James W. Black, Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment" |
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| 1988 | Chemistry | Johann Deisenhofer, Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel "for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre" |
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| 1987 | Physiology or Medicine | Susumu Tonegawa "for his discovery of the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity" |
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| 1986 | Physiology or Medicine | Stanley Cohen and Rita Levi-Montalcini "for their discoveries of growth factors" |
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| 1984 | Physiology or Medicine | Niels K. Jerne, Georges J.F. Köhler and César Milstein "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies" |
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| 1983 | Physiology or Medicine | Barbara McClintock "for her discovery of mobile genetic elements" |
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| 1982 | Physiology or Medicine | Sune K. Bergström, Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane "for their discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related biologically active substances"` |
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| 1982 | Chemistry | Aaron Klug "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes" |
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| 1980 | Physiology or Medicine | Baruj Benacerraf, Jean Dausset and George D. Snell "for their discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions" |
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| 1980 | Chemistry | Paul Berg "for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA" Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids" |
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| 1978 | Physiology or Medicine | Werner Arber, Daniel Nathans and Hamilton O. Smith "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics" |
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| 1978 | Chemistry | Peter D. Mitchell "for his contribution to the understanding of biological energy transfer through the formulation of the chemiosmotic theory |
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| 1975 | Physiology or Medicine | David Baltimore, Renato Dulbecco and Howard Martin Temin "for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell" |
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| 1972 | Physiology or Medicine | Gerald M. Edelman and Rodney R. Porter "for their discoveries concerning the chemical structure of antibodies" |
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| 1972 | Chemistry | Christian B. Anfinsen "for his work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation" Stanford Moore and William H. Stein "for their contribution to the understanding of the connection between chemical structure and catalytic activity of the active centre of the ribonuclease molecule" |
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| 1971 | Physiology or Medicine | Earl W. Sutherland, Jr. "for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones" |
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| 1968 | Physiology or Medicine | Robert W. Holley, Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg "for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis" |
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| 1967 | Physiology or Medicine | Ragnar Granit, Haldan Keffer Hartline and George Wald "for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye" |
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| 1965 | Physiology or Medicine | François Jacob, André Lwoff and Jacques Monod "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis" |
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| 1964 | Chemistry | Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances" |
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| 1962 | Physiology or Medicine | Francis Harry Compton Crick, James Dewey Watson and Maurice Hugh Frederick Wilkins "for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material" |
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| 1962 | Chemistry | Max Ferdinand Perutz and John Cowdery Kendrew "for their studies of the structures of globular proteins" |
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| 1961 | Chemistry | Melvin Calvin "for his research on the carbon dioxide assimilation in plants" |
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| 1959 | Physiology or Medicine | Severo Ochoa and Arthur Kornberg "for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid" |
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| 1958 | Chemistry | Frederick Sanger "for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin" |
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| 1957 | Chemistry | Lord (Alexander R.) Todd "for his work on nucleotides and nucleotide co-enzymes" |
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| 1955 | Chemistry | Vincent du Vigneaud "for his work on biochemically important sulphur compounds, especially for the first synthesis of a polypeptide hormone" |
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| 1954 | Physiology or Medicine | John Franklin Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller and Frederick Chapman Robbins "for their discovery of the ability of poliomyelitis viruses to grow in cultures of various types of tissue" |
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| 1954 | Chemistry | Linus Carl Pauling "for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances" |
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| 1953 | Physiology or Medicine | Hans Adolf Krebs "for his discovery of the citric acid cycle" Fritz Albert Lipmann "for his discovery of co-enzyme A and its importance for intermediary metabolism" |
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| 1952 | Physiology or Medicine | Selman Abraham Waksman "for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis" |
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| 1950 | Physiology or Medicine | Edward Calvin Kendall, Tadeus Reichstein and Philip Showalter Hench "for their discoveries relating to the hormones of the adrenal cortex, their structure and biological effects" |
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| 1947 | Physiology or Medicine | Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Theresa Cori, née Radnitz "for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen" Bernardo Alberto Houssay "for his discovery of the part played by the hormone of the anterior pituitary lobe in the metabolism of sugar" |
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| 1945 | Physiology or Medicine | Sir Alexander Fleming, Ernst Boris Chain and Sir Howard Walter Florey "for the discovery of penicillin and its curative effect in various infectious diseases" |
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| 1930 | Physiology or Medicine | Karl Landsteiner "for his discovery of human blood groups" |
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| 1923 | Physiology or Medicine | Frederick Grant Banting and John James Rickard Macleod "for the discovery of insulin" |
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Experimental Method-related Nobel Prizes
Several awards have recognized the methods and techniques that enable structural biology research.
| Year | Category | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Chemistry | Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson "for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution" |
| 2013 | Chemistry | Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems" |
| 2002 | Chemistry | "for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules" with one half jointly to John B. Fenn and Koichi Tanaka "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules" and the other half to Kurt Wüthrich "for his development of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for determining the three-dimensional structure of biological macromolecules in solution" |
| 1991 | Chemistry | Richard R. Ernst "for his contributions to the development of the methodology of high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy" |
| 1986 | Physics | Ernst Ruska "for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope" Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer "for their design of the scanning tunneling microscope" |
| 1985 | Chemistry | Herbert A. Hauptman and Jerome Karle "for their outstanding achievements in the development of direct methods for the determination of crystal structures" |
| 1982 | Chemistry | Aaron Klug "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes" |
| 1946 | Chemistry | James Batcheller Sumner "for his discovery that enzymes can be crystallized" John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley "for their preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form" |
| 1915 | Physics | Sir William Henry Bragg and William Lawrence Bragg "for their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays" |
| 1914 | Physics | Max von Laue "for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals" |
| 1901 | Physics | Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him" |
