A lot of problems have been solved from a bioinformatics perspective and in most of the life science research bioinformatics immensely contributes. But till date there hasn't been a single Nobel prize given to a bioinformatician or in the field of bioinformatics or biocomputing. what is the root cause? or what are we lacking?
There is a nice discussion on Tiwari's blog on this subject. More so arguing that BLAST deserves a Nobel Prize. 26587 BLAST citations versus 14510 for PCR. Data as at 2009 http://abhishek-tiwari.com/2009/10/nobel-prize-for-blast.html
Although I agree with the statement "A lot of problems have been solved from a bioinformatics perspective", I am not sure about "in most of the life science research bioinformatics is core of research". What do you mean by "most" and "core"? That overstates the role and importance of bioinformatics, I think. For most practicing biologists, bioinformatics is a tool, like tissue culture. Maybe I have this point of view because I sit in a wet lab, in an institute largely populated by molecular biologists and geneticists.
It's reasonable to ask what the intrinsic value of a prize might be. The awards are idiosyncratic and politial. Every year experts handicap the Nobel prizes and loads of deserving, brilliant people are not recognized (e.g. see Derek Lowe's blog). Individual techniques do get awards: look at PCR and GFP, for example. Those had to be chemistry awards, since there is no "biology" prize. There's no "mathematics" or "computer science" award either, although there are the Fields medal and Turing awards.
I wouldn't worry if there are no "bioinformatics" nobel prizes for the next 20 years. This is a new discipline. Of more importance, in my mind, is more funded RO1 awards for work that uses bioinformatics techniques, more PIs who think of bioinformatics as a normal part of research rather than an add-on to throw at problems when they can't figure out a mechanism, and training more researchers to learn biology and bioinformatics techniques at the same time.
I would agree that it is time to recognize BLAST and with it the entire field.
Worth bumping this question in the light of today's news.
posts cannot be removed by anyone else but the author, moderator deletion will still be visible for moderators and there is no such post for you.
but it could be that some posts got lost in the migration in case you posted more than a year and half ago - especially if that post might have been moderated or was in some sort of special state
Well if you might be looking for a candidate read this Esquire feature about Eric Schadt. I agree with David that there are more important things to worry about, but this is a nice read over the weekend anyway.
Would the price be for a Bioinformaticist or A Bioinformatician?
I think that there will never be a nobel prices for bioinformatics, for the same reason there is no such price for medical informatics, communication sciences, political sciences and so forth.
So no one has ever voted for the Franklin Award?
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Are you sure about this? Have you ever heard about Fred Sanger or Max Perutz? Bioinformatics began within a group of Nobelists. Before posting such question, check Wikipedia and the history of bioinformatics.
although I would try to defend BLAST with a beer or two, I should agree that it may be not be awarded with the Nobel prize as it is a great algorithm implementation that has greatly helped genetics for more than 10 years. but I wouldn't compare it at all with PCR, which actually is an amazing discovery that has redefined DNA analysis as it was conceived before, and in fact did give the Nobel prize in chemistry on 1993 to his discoverer in 1986, Kary Mullis. I would say that we could live without BLAST, but no current genetics would make sense without PCR.
Nobel prizes are given for specific disciplines - medicine and chemistry but not biology. Which discoveries that have used tools based on bioinformatics. Do you think have been overlooked? I don't really see BLAST or PCR as Nobel prize material... they are great but just tools.
Well, if you dig a little deeper, you'll discover that the first bioinformaticians were crystallographers, including Perutz. Check the 1962 presentation of the Nobel Prize. They were using computers since 1955 for x-ray crystallography. I've worked with this technique in my Msc. and can say for sure that's impossible to do without them. So, bioinformatics is a creation of Nobelists. There's nothing lacking since its creation.
Now we are talking!!! I agree that bioinformatics is somewhat underrated, as computer science in general. Consider the case of the B-tree data structure. It swept the entire planet in less than a decade, altering every filesystem at the time. It's a HUGE improvement for computers and data storage. Nevertheless, no Nobel or any other science prize for this amazing algorithm. Computer science is something different from mathematics and natural science. And, as mathematics has done, it will to elaborate its own prizes.
I am absolutely sure about this, Fred Sanger is an English biochemist and a two-time Nobel laureate in chemistry and Max Perutz is a British molecular biologist, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with John Kendrew, for their studies of the structures of hemoglobin and globular proteins....... Based on the facts on wikipedia as suggested by you to read.
Agree bioinformatics is creation of Nobelist... it is clear.... but where is the Noble prize in bioinformatics or in biocomputing...... or am I missing something....
Could you frame an answer to this question ..... like exactly or possibly what is the reason for no recognition by Noble Committee.... I am looking for reasons
I agree BLAST and PCR are just great tools but not for Noble Prize ....