Saturday, April 1, 2023
manilastandard.net
ADVERTISEMENT
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Others
    • Pets
    • Pop.Life
      • Newsmakers
      • Hangouts
      • A-Pop
      • Post Its
      • Performances
      • Malls & Bazaars
      • Hobbies & Collections
    • Technology
      • Gadgets
      • Computers
      • Business
      • Tech Plus
    • MS ON THE ROAD
      • Sedan
      • SUV
      • Truck
      • Bike
      • Accessories
      • Motoring Plus
      • Commuter’s Corner
    • Home & Design
      • Residential
      • Commercial
      • Construction
      • Interior
    • Spotlight
    • Gallery
      • Photos
      • Videos
    • Events
      • Seminars
      • Exhibits
      • Community
    • Biyahero
      • Travel Features
      • Travel Reels
      • Travel Logs
  • Advertise with Us
No Result
View All Result
manilastandard.net
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion Columns

A Nobel winner’s nervous night

AFPbyAFP
October 9, 2019, 12:30 am
in Columns
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on Email

By Ivan Couronne /Issam Ahmed

When US scientist William Kaelin's phone began ringing at 5:00 a.m. he wasn't sure whether he was dreaming: Winning the Nobel Medicine Prize had long been a goal, but he also thought it was a long shot.

He then noticed the caller ID was from Europe, "And at that point my heart started racing," the 61-year-old told AFP in an interview.

Kaelin, who runs a laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and is a professor at Harvard Medical School, was honored Monday along with fellow American Gregg Semenza and Britain's Peter Ratcliffe for their research on how cells sense and adapt to changing oxygen levels.

ADVERTISEMENT

Their pioneering work, carried out in the 1990s and early 2000s, has opened up new strategies to fight diseases from cancer to anemia.

Kaelin said it would be a lie to say he had never dreamt of winning the prize, but "you try not to let it distort your daily life significantly," and he went to bed at a normal time Sunday night, tempering his hopes, as he had done for many years on the eve of Nobel week.

Semenza, on the other hand, missed the first pre-dawn call from the Swedish academy, and waited several anxious minutes by the phone, answering it second time around.

"I was in a daze," he said, adding he had not been expecting the honor but had since celebrated with champagne.

Disease cures

At the heart of the trio's research is how the body registers and responds to oxygen, which supports life as we know it on Earth.

Scientists have long known that climbing to high altitudes spurs production of the hormone erythropoietin, which in turn leads to more red blood cells, to help compensate for lower oxygen levels.

Semenza and Ratcliffe dug into how this gene worked on a cellular level, with the former publishing breakthrough work on the subject 1995.

Kaelin came to the same subject from a different direction, through his investigations into von Hippel-Lindau's disease.

Individuals who inherit this rare condition develop tumors that over produce the distress signal associated with hypoxia—making it a prime candidate to study the body's oxygen-regulation tools.

The three scientists did not directly collaborate, but read each others' papers and met and shared ideas at conferences.

By better understanding these pathways, scientists can devise drugs to fight disease.

In the case of someone who had anemia or a heart attack, the idea would be to spur EPO production and thereby boost the formation of blood cells and vessels. China approved such a drug for anemia last year.

For cancers, on the other hand, trials for drugs that interrupt this process and thus short-circuit tumors are now underway.

Basic research

For Kaelin, the breakthrough highlighted the importance of basic research—that is, work aimed at deepening understanding of natural phenomena and driven by scientists' curiosity.

"Here I am as a cancer biologist helping to contribute to a new drug for hematological condition, namely anemia," he said, adding he hoped to use his voice to advocate for sufficient funding for such science.

"I think that's the way real science works, it doesn't work by putting blinders on people and trying to make believe they're working on an engineering problem when they're really working on a scientific problem."

That was echoed by Semenza, who told AFP: "We do know that a lot of the really novel discoveries in terms of therapies come from unexpected turns in projects that started in very basic research."

"We made the discoveries when we were young, but we get recognized when we're old," the 63-year-old director of the Vascular Research Program at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering added.

Kaelin said he was accepting his prize partly on behalf of his late wife Carolyn, a breast cancer surgeon who died from a brain tumor in 2015.

After she died, he thought winning the Nobel "would be just be too bittersweet and it would be too crushing" he said, "but I'm at a point now where I like to think she's smiling down and nodding and saying 'I told you, I told you this can happen.'"

Tags: Dana-Farber Cancer InstituteNobel Medicine PrizeWilliam Kaelin
ADVERTISEMENT
AFP

AFP

Related Posts

Hosanna! Our King is here!

byTony La Viña
April 1, 2023, 12:15 am
0
8
Denying Villafuerte justice

"As Lent went on, we lost our enthusiasm for prayer, fasting, and alms giving" Palm Sunday celebrates the triumphant entry...

Read more

Is our membership in the ICC to our advantage?

byRod Kapunan
April 1, 2023, 12:10 am
0
8
Denying Villafuerte justice

"China, India, and Russia are not members of the ICC but they have never been accused of aggression or of...

Read more

The resurgence of medical cannabis

byGem Marq Mutia, MD
April 1, 2023, 12:05 am
0
8
RSA: Mr. Malasakit, the environmentalist

"Cannabis is moving out of the drug dens back into the drug stores and medicine cabinets" Cannabis, or more commonly...

Read more

‘Mr. Biraogo is out-of-the-loop’

byManila Standard
April 1, 2023, 12:00 am
0
8
‘Mr. Biraogo is out-of-the-loop’

30 March 2023 ROLANDO G. ESTABILLIOPublisherThe Manila Standard Dear Mr. Estabillio Good day! This is in reference to the article...

Read more

When homicide becomes murder

byTranquil G.S. Salvador III
March 31, 2023, 12:10 am
0
8
Why literature is relevant

"Premeditation should be evidenced in the execution of a criminal act; it should be ‘receded by cool thought and reflection…...

Read more

Nemenzo, UP radicals behave like they are beyond the law

byLouis "Barok" Biraogo
March 31, 2023, 12:05 am
0
8
Anti-Duterte RTC judges seek appointment to CA

"What the radicals in UP have succeeded in so far doing is to encourage the youth to resort to bullying...

Read more

Print Edition

View More

Recent Posts

  • Women YouTube content creators break barriers online and beyond
  • TW Steel launches new campaign ‘Time is Now’ in PH
  • HD Spikers turn back Cotabato Spikers, complete perfect season
  • TNT mauls Meralco, sets championship faceoff with Ginebra
  • Notice of Postponement of Annual Stockholder’s Meeting- Asia Pacific Medical Center Iloilo
  • PBBM: Bataan-Cavite link ‘incredible feat’ once done
  • DOJ: One of plotters arrested
  • EU: ‘Serious’ PH compliance helping seafarers retain jobs

Advertisement

Latest News

PBBM: Bataan-Cavite link ‘incredible feat’ once done

byVince Lopezand1 others
April 1, 2023, 1:10 am
0
8
President: Keep military assets in tip-top shape

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday applauded the planned construction of the P175.6-billion Bataan-Cavite Interlink Bridge (BCIB), which will drastically...

Read more

DOJ: One of plotters arrested

byRey E. Requejoand1 others
April 1, 2023, 1:05 am
0
8
DOJ to present additional evidence in Ongpin case

Remulla claims Degamo slay '99% solved,' says Teves in midst of it all The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has...

Read more

EU: ‘Serious’ PH compliance helping seafarers retain jobs

byManila Standard
April 1, 2023, 1:00 am
0
8
Southwoods nails Seniors’ Fil golf crown

The European Union will still recognize certificates of Filipino seafarers, saying the Philippines has made "serious" developments to comply with...

Read more

Big LPG price cut at P9.20/k; Gas, diesel seen to cost more

byAlena Mae S. Flores
April 1, 2023, 12:50 am
0
8
Southwoods nails Seniors’ Fil golf crown

Petron Corp. announced a P9.20 per kilo price cut for liquefied petroleum gas effective today, even as domestic pump prices...

Read more

President: Keep military assets in tip-top shape

byVince Lopezand1 others
April 1, 2023, 12:45 am
0
8
President: Keep military assets in tip-top shape

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday emphasized the importance of repair and maintenance of military assets as he inspected two...

Read more

Advertisement

ADVERTISEMENT
Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube

ABOUT US

Manila Standard

Manila Standard website (manilastandard.net), launched in August 2002, extends the newspaper’s reach beyond its traditional readers and makes its brand of Philippine news and opinion available to a much wider and geographically diverse readership here and overseas.

Digital Edition

In tone and content, the online edition mirrors the editorial thrust of the newspaper. While hewing to the traditional precepts of fairness and objectivity, MS believes the news of the day need not be staid, overly long or dry. Stories are succinct, readable and written in a lively style that has become a hallmark of the newspaper.

Download – Today’s Paper

Search

No Result
View All Result

6th Floor Universal Re Bldg., 106 Paseo De Roxas cor. Perea Street, Legaspi Village, 1226 Makati City Philippines

Trunklines: 832-5554, 832-5556, 832-5558

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • News
    • Top Stories
    • National
    • World News
    • Pinoy Abroad
    • Features
  • Opinion
    • Editorial
    • Columns
    • Soundbytes
  • LGUs
    • NCR
    • Luzon
    • Visayas
    • Mindanao
  • Business
    • Corporate
    • Economy & Trade
    • Stocks
    • Money
    • Agri & Mining
    • Power & Tech
    • IT & Telecom
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Volleyball
    • Fightsports
    • Active
    • Sports Plus
    • One Championship
    • Columns
  • Entertainment
    • TV & Movies
    • Celebrity Profiles
    • Music & Concerts
    • Digital Media
    • Columns
  • Lifestyle
    • Food
    • Culture & Media
    • Fashion
    • Health and Home
    • Leisure
    • Shopping
    • Columns
  • Pop.Life
    • Newsmakers
    • Hangouts
    • A-Pop
    • Post Its
    • Performances
    • Malls & Bazaars
    • Hobbies & Collections
  • Technology
    • Gadgets
    • Computers
    • Business
    • Tech Plus
  • MS ON THE ROAD
    • Sedan
    • SUV
    • Truck
    • Bike
    • Accessories
    • Motoring Plus
    • Commuter’s Corner
  • Home & Design
    • Residential
    • Commercial
    • Construction
    • Interior
  • Spotlight
  • Gallery
    • Photos
    • Videos
  • Events
    • Seminars
    • Exhibits
    • Community
  • Biyahero
    • Travel Features
    • Travel Reels
    • Travel Logs
  • Pets
  • Advertise with Us

© 2021 Manila Standard - Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Install Manila Standard Web App

Install App