Nobel Laureates in Medicine

Nobel Prize 2020

Charles Rice

Nobel Prize. Associated with Rockefeller University.

Alfred Gilman

Alfred Gilman was an American pharmacologist who discovered G-proteins, the molecular switches that relay signals inside cells. Nobel Prize 1994.

Allan Cormack

Allan Cormack was a South African-American physicist who developed the mathematical algorithms for CT scanning independently of Hounsfield. Nobel Prize 1979.

Barbara McClintock

Barbara McClintock was an American geneticist who discovered genetic transposition (jumping genes), demonstrating that the genome is far more dynamic than previously believed. Nobel Prize 1983.

Baruj Benacerraf

Baruj Benacerraf was a Venezuelan-American immunologist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1980 for discovering the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes that regulate immune responses. His work on immune response genes was foundational to understanding organ transplant rejection and autoimmune diseases.

Bert Sakmann

Bert Sakmann is a German neuroscientist who developed patch clamp technique for recording single ion channel currents. Nobel Prize 1991.

Charles Brenton Huggins

Charles Huggins was a Canadian-American urologist who discovered that hormone therapy could treat prostate and breast cancer. His work on hormonal manipulation of cancer opened an entirely new approach to cancer treatment. Nobel Prize 1966.

Christiaan Eijkman

Christiaan Eijkman was a Dutch physician who discovered that beriberi is caused by nutritional deficiency, not infection. His work on polished vs unpolished rice led to the discovery of vitamins. Nobel Prize 1929.

Christiane Nusslein-Volhard

Christiane Nusslein-Volhard is a German developmental biologist who discovered the genetic mechanisms controlling embryonic development. Nobel Prize 1995.

Edward Lewis

Edward Lewis was an American geneticist who discovered how genes control the body plan of developing organisms. His work on homeotic genes revolutionized developmental biology. Nobel Prize 1995.

Eric Kandel

Eric Kandel is an Austrian-American neuroscientist who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system and the molecular basis of memory. Using the sea slug Aplysia, he demonstrated how synaptic connections are modified during learning.

Erwin Neher

Erwin Neher is a German biophysicist who co-developed the patch clamp technique for recording ion channel activity. Nobel Prize 1991.

Ferid Murad

Ferid Murad was an American physician-pharmacologist of Albanian-Turkish descent who shared the Nobel Prize in 1998 for discovering nitric oxide as a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. His work led directly to the development of drugs like sildenafil (Viagra) and understanding of vasodilation.

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi is a French virologist who co-discovered HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Nobel Prize 2008.

Gertrude Elion

Gertrude Elion was an American pharmacologist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1988 for discoveries of important principles for drug treatment. She developed drugs for leukemia (6-mercaptopurine), malaria, gout, organ transplant rejection (azathioprine), and herpes (acyclovir), revolutionizing rational drug design.

Gerty Cori

Gerty Cori was a Czech-American biochemist who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1947) for discovering the Cori cycle of glycogen metabolism.

Godfrey Hounsfield

Godfrey Hounsfield was a British electrical engineer who invented the CT scanner. His computed tomography technology revolutionized diagnostic medicine. Nobel Prize 1979.

Gregg Semenza

Gregg Semenza is an American geneticist who discovered HIF-1, the master regulator of cellular oxygen sensing. Nobel Prize 2019.

Gunter Blobel

Gunter Blobel was a German-American biologist who discovered that proteins have intrinsic signals governing their transport and localization in the cell. Nobel Prize 1999.

H. Robert Horvitz

H. Robert Horvitz is an American biologist who discovered the genetic regulation of programmed cell death (apoptosis) in C. elegans. Nobel Prize 2002.

Portrait of Har Gobind Khorana, Nobel Laureate

Har Gobind Khorana

Har Gobind Khorana was an Indian-American biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize in 1968 for interpreting the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis. He was the first to synthesize a functional gene and made foundational contributions to understanding how nucleotide sequences determine amino acid assembly.

Howard Florey

Howard Florey was an Australian pathologist who developed penicillin into a practical antibiotic drug, saving countless lives in World War II and beyond. Nobel Prize 1945.

J. Michael Bishop

J. Michael Bishop is an American virologist who discovered that normal cells contain genes (proto-oncogenes) that can cause cancer when mutated. Nobel Prize 1989.

Jack Szostak

Jack Szostak is a Canadian-American geneticist who discovered how telomeres and telomerase protect chromosomes. Nobel Prize 2009.

James Rothman

James Rothman is an American cell biologist who discovered the molecular machinery for vesicle transport in cells. Nobel Prize 2013.

Jeffrey Hall

Jeffrey Hall is an American geneticist who discovered the molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythm. Nobel Prize 2017.

John O'Keefe

John O'Keefe is an American-British neuroscientist who discovered place cells in the hippocampus, revealing how the brain creates a map of space. Nobel Prize 2014.

John Sulston

John Sulston was a British biologist who mapped the complete cell lineage of C. elegans and led the UK contribution to the Human Genome Project. Nobel Prize 2002.

Portrait of Joseph Murray, Nobel Laureate

Joseph Murray

Joseph Murray was an American plastic surgeon and transplant pioneer who performed the first successful human organ transplant -- a kidney transplant between identical twins Richard and Ronald Herrick -- on December 23, 1954, at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. His subsequent work on immunosuppression to enable transplants between non-identical individuals laid the foundation for modern organ transplantation, earning him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1990.

Jules Hoffmann

Jules Hoffmann is a Luxembourgish-French immunologist who discovered the role of Toll receptors in innate immunity, founding the field of innate immune signaling. Nobel Prize 2011.

Leland Hartwell

Leland Hartwell is an American geneticist who discovered the key regulators of the cell cycle, the fundamental process by which cells divide. Nobel Prize 2001.

Linda Buck

Linda Buck is an American neuroscientist who co-discovered odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system. Nobel Prize 2004.

Marie Curie

Marie Curie was a Polish-French physicist and chemist who discovered radium and polonium and pioneered research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. Her work laid the foundation for radiation therapy in cancer treatment.

Michael Houghton

Michael Houghton is a British-Canadian virologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2020 for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus in 1989. His work enabled blood screening tests that have prevented millions of HCV infections worldwide.

Michael Rosbash

Michael Rosbash is an American geneticist who discovered the transcription-translation feedback loop underlying circadian rhythm. Nobel Prize 2017.

Michael Young

Michael Young is an American geneticist who discovered the timeless gene and mechanisms of circadian rhythm regulation. Nobel Prize 2017.

Oliver Smithies

Oliver Smithies was a British-American geneticist who developed gene targeting to create knockout mice and invented gel electrophoresis. Nobel Prize 2007.

Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich was a German Nobel laureate physician and scientist who pioneered the fields of hematology, immunology, and chemotherapy. He is best known for developing Salvarsan in 1910, the first effective treatment for syphilis and the first modern chemotherapeutic agent, and for his groundbreaking work on immunity that earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908.

Paul Greengard

Paul Greengard was an American neuroscientist who discovered how dopamine and other neurotransmitters exert their effects via signal transduction. Nobel Prize 2000.

Paul Lauterbur

Paul Lauterbur was an American chemist who invented MRI by developing the concept of using magnetic field gradients to produce two-dimensional images. Nobel Prize 2003.

Peter Mansfield

Peter Mansfield was a British physicist who made MRI practical for clinical use by developing echo-planar imaging and mathematical techniques for rapid image reconstruction. Nobel Prize 2003.

Randy Schekman

Randy Schekman is an American cell biologist who discovered genes governing vesicle traffic in cells. Nobel Prize 2013.

Richard Axel

Richard Axel is an American neuroscientist who discovered the odorant receptor gene family and the organization of the olfactory system. Nobel Prize 2004.

Robert Furchgott

Robert Furchgott was an American pharmacologist who discovered that nitric oxide (NO) is a signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system. Nobel Prize 1998.

Robert Koch

Robert Koch was a German physician who identified the causative agents of tuberculosis, cholera, and anthrax. He established Koch's postulates, the foundational criteria for proving a microorganism causes a disease, and won the Nobel Prize in 1905.

Robin Warren

Robin Warren is an Australian pathologist who first observed Helicobacter pylori in gastric biopsies and proposed its link to ulcers. Nobel Prize 2005.

Ronald Ross

Ronald Ross was a British physician born in India who proved that malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, one of the most important discoveries in medical history. Nobel Prize 1902.

Rosalyn Yalow

Rosalyn Yalow was an American medical physicist who developed radioimmunoassay (RIA), a revolutionary technique for measuring tiny quantities of biological substances. Nobel Prize 1977.

Santiago Ramon y Cajal

Santiago Ramon y Cajal was a Spanish neuroscientist who established the neuron doctrine, proving that the nervous system is made of individual cells (neurons) rather than a continuous network. He shared the Nobel Prize in 1906 and is considered the father of modern neuroscience.

Susumu Tonegawa

Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese molecular biologist who won the Nobel Prize in 1987 for discovering the genetic mechanism of antibody diversity (V(D)J recombination). He later pivoted to neuroscience, making breakthrough discoveries in memory engram cells at MIT.

Svante Paabo

Svante Paabo is a Swedish geneticist who pioneered the field of paleogenomics by sequencing the Neanderthal genome and discovering the Denisovans. Nobel Prize 2022.

Thomas Sudhof

Thomas Sudhof is a German-American neuroscientist who discovered how nerve cells communicate via synaptic vesicle release. Nobel Prize 2013.

Tim Hunt

Tim Hunt is a British biochemist who discovered cyclins, the proteins that regulate the cell division cycle. Nobel Prize 2001.

Werner Forssmann

Werner Forssmann was a German physician who performed the first cardiac catheterization on himself in 1929, threading a catheter into his own heart. This act of self-experimentation founded interventional cardiology. Nobel Prize 1956.

Wilhelm Rontgen

Wilhelm Rontgen was a German physicist who discovered X-rays in 1895, revolutionizing medical diagnosis. He received the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901 and refused to patent his discovery, ensuring its free use for medical purposes worldwide.

William Kaelin

William Kaelin is an American physician-scientist who discovered how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability, revealing the VHL-HIF pathway. Nobel Prize 2019.

Wu Lien-teh

Wu Lien-teh was a Malaysian-Chinese physician who stopped the Manchurian plague epidemic of 1910-1911, the first person to identify pneumonic plague transmission by respiratory droplets. He invented the modern surgical face mask and was the first person of Chinese descent nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Yoshinori Ohsumi

Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist who discovered the mechanisms of autophagy, the cell's recycling system. Nobel Prize 2016.

Youyou Tu

Youyou Tu is a Chinese pharmaceutical chemist who discovered artemisinin, extracted from sweet wormwood, which revolutionized malaria treatment and saved millions of lives. Nobel Prize 2015.