The 2024 Nobel Prize announcements began on Oct. 7, recognizing groundbreaking contributions to humanity.
In the category of Physiology or Medicine, Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield were honored for their pioneering work in discovering microRNA. The Physics award went to Gary Ruvkun and Victor Ambros for their groundbreaking contributions to the development of machine learning, a field central to the progress of artificial intelligence. Notably, among this year’s laureates are two scientists of Polish descent!
Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto and John Hopfield of Princeton University, whose father, John Joseph Hopfield, was a physicist of Polish descent from Płock. In all biographical materials, the father of this year’s Nobel laureate is recognized as a Polish scientist.
Hinton and Hopfield were honored “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” according to the Nobel Prize Foundation. That allows AI to find patterns in large batches of data. The Nobel Committee emphasized the revolutionary impact of their contributions, stating: “Machine learning has long been important for research, including the sorting and analysis of vast amounts of data. John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton used tools from physics to construct methods that helped lay the foundation for today’s powerful machine learning. Machine learning based on artificial neural networks is currently revolutionizing science, engineering and daily life,”
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to U.S. scientists Gary Ruvkun and Victor Ambros, the latter of whom has Polish roots through his father, who emigrated to the United States shortly before World War II.
The award honors their pioneering discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. The announcement described microRNAs as “a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation.This turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.”
Recipients of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, literature, peace, and economic sciences will be announced over the coming week. Winners are given a medal, a personal diploma, and a cash award of about $1.1 million.
Source:
https://www.nobelprize.org/all-nobel-prizes-2024/
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7784/Artykul/3433213,victor-ambros-%E2%80%93-a-nobel-prize-winner-with-polish-roots
https://time.com/7065011/nobel-prize-2024-winners/
