There’s an interesting Editorial in Nature Photonics this month (November) about the 2009 Nobel prize for physics (Nat. Photon. 3, 605; 2009), won for two innovations in photonics that underpin society’s adoption of information technology. From the Editorial: “What is particularly interesting about this year’s choice of award is the strongly applied nature of the achievements and the prevalence of the technologies in today’s society. Indeed, this is probably one of the rare instances where many of those working outside science are likely to have both an immediate familiarity with the topics of the award and an appreciation of their usefulness. After all, in developed countries fibre-optic communications underpin phone networks and the internet, and digital cameras are now considered a ubiquitous item in many households.” The Nature Photonics editors are intrigued as to whether this year’s award will set a Nobel precedent for honouring practical applications of scientific research.

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will soon (early October) be awarded amid the usual speculation, angst, disagreement and elation — but Nature Chemistry’s October Editorial (Nat. Chem. 1, 509; 2009) asks whether it is really worth all the fuss? The Editorial begins:

“Imagine a world where Christmas comes once a year, but only to one, two or three boys or girls who have been especially good. All the other well-behaved children receive no gifts, and those lucky few who were chosen become the centre of attention and no longer have time to do the chores that led to them being picked out in the first place. Not to mention that some of the other children are now a little jealous of the presents and the attention bestowed on their former playmates. Wouldn’t that be a shame?

Of course, many more children are given Christmas presents every year, but the Nobel Prize Committee cannot be so generous. The rules of the Nobel Foundation — the private institution that administers the award of the Nobel Prizes — stipulate that each prize can be awarded to only one, two or three individuals.”

After considering the aims of the prize in the years since it was first created, and reviewing some of the more contentious decisions, the Editorial concludes that science in Alfred Nobel’s time was a pursuit of a few individuals, “a far cry from the worldwide endeavour of modern research groups. Giving a prize to all the people who have contributed to a scientific advance — integrating the curve of work from summer students to group leaders — would be fairer, but less likely to generate easily digestible headlines.

And that is where the Nobel Prize is of great benefit to science — rather than individual scientists. The day of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry announcement is the one day of the year that chemistry is guaranteed to generate headlines, and positive ones at that.”

From Nature Methods 6, 547 (2009): It is difficult to dispute the idea that some methodological developments have the power to strongly influence the pace and direction of scientific inquiry. For each of the last two years, Nature Methods has celebrated this by selecting a methodology we felt had demonstrated the potential for such an impact.

In 2007, we picked next-generation sequencing, and this class of methods has already had a profound effect on the conduct of biological research. Only time will tell what the impact of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy—our choice in 2008—will be.

Last year, we invited you—our readers—to participate by nominating and voting for methodological developments. We are now halfway through 2009, and it is time once again to ask for your input. Visit our Method of the Year webpage and vote on a selection of methodologies or nominate a method yourself.

You may nominate any recent method or class of methods, published anywhere in the scientific literature, that you believe is likely to have a profound impact on future biological research. You are welcome to nominate a method that you yourself developed, but please acknowledge your connection to it.

We will take the results of the popular vote into consideration when choosing the Method of the Year 2009, and the votes will also serve as inspiration for picking the Methods to Watch that accompany it. So start thinking about methods to nominate, and vote for your choice of Method of the Year 2009!

The June issue of Nature Reviews Genetics (10, 351; 2009) features an interview with Kevin Campbell of the University of Iowa, one of the joint winners of the 2009 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. The other winner is Louis Kunkel of Harvard Medical School and The Children’s Hospital, Boston. The researchers were honoured for their pioneering work in identifying the genes and proteins that are disrupted in muscular dystrophies. The prize recognizes researchers whose work has contributed to understanding the science that underlies birth defects.

Nature Reviews Genetics talked to the winners about their scientific careers and their views on biomedical research. The interview with Louis Kunkel will appear in next month’s (July’s) issue; here are a couple of the questions that Louisa Flintoft asked Keven Campbell:

Your bachelor’s degree is in physics. Have you found that useful as a biologist?

The problem-solving aspect is what I find really helpful today. Especially early on in your career I think it’s important not to be too specialized, and having a diverse scientific background is really helpful. You never know where a research topic is going to lead.

Does the media report disease-related research in a useful way?

The media is really important in getting information to the general public. Sometimes it gets inflated and that’s scary. Even scientifically I think we’re having a problem. If you search for “rescue for mdx” there are so many papers, but in most cases those are not going to be directly translated into therapies. I think that leads to a lot of people thinking that these diseases are about to be cured. I try to make sure that we don’t do that.

See the current (June) issue of Nature Reviews Genetics for the full interview.