Five scientists have won the Nobel Prize twice – 10/03/2023 – Science

In 121 years of the Nobel Prize, 954 people have been awarded the international honor and only five of them managed to win two prizes. The first to achieve this feat was the Polish Marie Curie, the first female laureate and the only person to win in two different scientific categories: physics and chemistry.

The record, however, belongs to an entity and not to a person: the International Committee of the Red Cross is the only one to have won three Nobel Prizes in history, all for Peace. The first two, in 1917 and 1944, were for his work during the First and Second World Wars. The third, in 1963, was a tribute to the organization’s one hundred years.

Check out the stories of the biggest Nobel Prize winners below

Marie Curie

Marie Sklodowska was born in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, into a family of teachers. After moving to Paris (FRA) to continue her studies, she met Pierre Curie, who became her husband and also her research companion. In 1903, the couple, alongside Antoine Henri Becquerel, won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the study of uranium salts and the discovery of radioactivity.

Eight years later, in 1911, already a widow —Pierre had died after being run over in 1906—, she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and study of the elements polonium, in honor of her country of origin, and radium, for its high level of radioactivity.

In 1910, Marie managed to produce radium as a pure metal, which proved the existence of the new element. She also documented the properties of radioactive elements and their compounds, which became important as sources of radiation both in scientific experiments and in the field of medicine, where they are still used today in the treatment of cancer (radiotherapy).

During the First World War, Curie organized mobile X-ray teams to treat wounded soldiers on the battlefield, using her findings. His eldest daughter, Irene, pursued radioactivity studies and also received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with her husband, Frederic Joliot, in 1935.

Marie died in 1934, in Sallanches, France, of leukemia, due to constant exposure to radioactive elements.

Linus Carl Pauling

Besides Marie Curie, the only other person to win the Nobel Prize in different categories was the American activist and chemist Linus Carl Pauling. The first was in Chemistry, in 1954, for his research into chemical bonds. During the 1930s, he pioneered the use of quantum mechanics to understand and describe how atoms come together to form molecules.

Pauling worked in a wide range of areas within chemistry. For example, in the structures of biologically important chemical compounds. In 1951, he published the structure of the alpha helix, which is an important building block of many proteins.

The second Nobel Prize he won was for Peace, in 1962, for the fight against the nuclear arms race between East and West during the Cold War. In 1959, Pauling wrote the “Hiroshima Appeal”, the document issued after the Fifth World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. He was one of the main boosters who pressured the nuclear powers USA, Soviet Union and Great Britain to conclude a nuclear test ban treaty, which came into force on October 10, 1963. On the same day, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Linus Pauling had won the Peace Prize that had been postponed since 1962.

Pauling died almost two decades later at age 93.

John Bardeen

John Bardeen was an American physicist and engineer who became the only scientist to have won the Nobel Prize in Physics twice. The first was won in 1956, alongside William B. Shockley and Walter H. Brattain, for their contribution to the invention of the transistor, a semiconductor amplifier that revolutionized radio, television and telephony, allowing the amplification of electrical signals.

Transistors have also become fundamental in the manufacture of electronic chips such as computer processors.

The second Nobel Prize was won in 1972, in partnership with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer, for the development of the quantum theory of superconductivity, also known as BCS. The trio discovered that when certain metals are cooled to extremely low temperatures, they become superconductors, conducting electrical current completely without resistance. Based on quantum mechanics, they formulated the theory for the phenomenon in 1957. Superconductors are currently used in magnetic resonance imaging devices and magnetic levitation trains (Maglev).

Bardeen died in 1991, aged 83.

Frederick Sanger

English biochemist Frederick Sanger won two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. In 1958, he received the award for his work on the structure of proteins, which are molecules composed of chains of amino acids that play a fundamental role within cells.

Starting in the 1940s, he began studying insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. Its lack causes diabetes. Sanger used acids to break the molecule into smaller parts, which were separated from each other with the help of electrophoresis (a process that allows the separation of molecules and ions in solution by means of an electric field) and chromatography (a physical-chemical method of separation of solids dissolved in a solution through the differential migration of their components). Further analysis determined the amino acid sequences in the two chains of the molecule, and in 1955 Sanger identified how the chains are linked together.

In 1980, he won his second Nobel Prize, along with Paul Berg and Walter Gilbert, for developing a DNA sequencing technique that is still used today. An organism’s genome is stored in the form of long rows of building blocks, known as nucleotides, that form DNA molecules.

In 1977, Sanger developed a method based on the use of small amounts of what are known as dideoxynucleotides. These can be inserted into the DNA chain, but at a certain nucleotide they stop chain growth, so fragments of different lengths are created. After undergoing electrophoresis, the nucleotide sequences in a DNA sample can be identified.

Sanger died in 2013, aged 95.

Barry Sharpless

The American Karl Barry Sharpless, 81, also won two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. The current professor at the Scripps Research Institute based his work on theorizing and implementing methods for molecules to bind to each other quickly and efficiently using special catalysts — substances that facilitate chemical reactions without being consumed in them. He called this process “click chemistry.” The process manages to bring together elements that were previously very difficult to unite.

Sharpless received first prize in 2001 for this theory. In 2022, he was again awarded the Nobel Prize because separate groups of scientists — one led by Sharpless himself — managed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theory proposed 21 years earlier. In this way, he became the second scientist, along with Frederik Sanger, to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry twice.

The technique is currently widely used in the development of pharmaceutical products, for DNA mapping and the creation of new materials.

International Committee of the Red Cross

Founded in 1863 on the initiative of Swiss Henry Dunant, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, the International Committee of the Red Cross is the record holder for the Peace Prize: 1917, 1944 and 1963.

The awards were given for the institution’s work on behalf of prisoners during the two world wars. In accordance with the 1929 Geneva Convention, the Red Cross had, during the war years, established contacts between prisoners and their families, sent parcels of clothing, medicine and food, inspected prison camps and organized prisoner exchanges.

The organization’s symbol, the red cross on a white background, was intended to protect friend and foe alike. In the following years, more and more states joined and established national committees and today they are active in several countries, such as in the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)

Another entity linked to human rights, UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981. On the first occasion, the Nobel Foundation announced that the award was “for its efforts to heal the wounds of war , providing aid and protection to refugees around the world” during the great world wars.

In 1981, the world’s refugee problem was even greater. While in the early 1950s the issue was mainly a European concern, by the second opportunity it had become important for the third world, especially in Africa, but also in Asia and Latin America. It was on the African continent that around half of the ten million refugees for whom the UNHCR was responsible at the time were located.

The UNHCR allocated the prize money to a fund for the benefit of refugees with functional disabilities.