The Nobel awards don’t just celebrate technical breakthroughs, they also represent and reward the achievements of individuals. These stories have influenced many words on Nature Network over the years.

Science is vast and the pace of research ever quicker. Not everyone who deserves a prize will get to make the trip to Stockholm. Who would you like to see win a prize who has not yet been rewarded? Heather Etchevers gave a brief biosketch of Nicole Le Douarin, whom she believes would be a worthy candidate for the Physiology or Medicine prize. Likewise, Martin Fenner nominated angiogenesis pioneer Judah Folkman who will sadly never win the prize following his death in 2008.

The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry to Prof. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan in 2009 caused heated debate in the Nature India forum. Was this a great achievement for Indian science, or hardly worth celebrating in that country given that Ramakrishnan’s training was mostly overseas. As one anonymous commenter put it:

I agree with the posts that India has nothing to do with Nobel Prize. But what’s wrong if India is happy and cheering about it. And even today if Dr. Ramakrishnan makes frequent visit to India he will be able to inspire more kids in India than in US/UK where there are enough Nobel Prize winners. India can surely benefit if a famous name visits campuses of Indian universities.

In the same year, the Women in Science forum celebrated the inclusion of three female laureates in Nobel (and IgNobel) awards. The achievement also motivated blogger Cobi Smith to say a few words about the gender disparity in Nobel awardees:

I also tweeted recently about how it was great to see an Australian woman share the prize for medicine for the first time. This year’s firsts are a reflection of the increasing impact of women in science; perhaps also the increasing pressure on the Nobel committee to balance the gender split of Nobel winners, which stands at 40 women (Marie Curie won twice) to more than 700 men.

On a similar theme, Linda Lin was inspired to write about two extremely important female scientists who never won the Nobel Prize, as part of the Ada Lovelace Day blogging initiative to promote awareness of women in science. Her subjects were the well-known case of Rosalind Franklin, and the biochemist Maud Menten:

In 1911 Menten was among the first women to garner a Medical Doctorate from a Canadian university, however, women researchers were not accepted in Canada. Thus, after her research term in the Michaelis lab she went south of the border, becoming a professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Still, she would not receive full professorship until a year before her retirement, at the age of 70, after 30 years as a clinical pathologist and researcher, who authored 100s of publications.

But it is important, too, to remember that those lucky individuals who secure the prize are just the tip of the iceberg. In nearly all cases, each is supported by a large network of fellows, postdocs, PhDs, technicians and others to accomplish their breakthrough research. Anna Kushnir wondered about this hidden army’s relationship to the prize:

I understand that the prizes are awarded for an entire body of work and the effect it had on science, but what about all those grad students and post-docs who actually carried out the research? What happens to the first authors on all those papers? Do they get a commemorative plaque? Or at least the right to add a line to their CV that states something to effect of “Carried out work which directly contributed to the NOBEL PRIZE”? All caps would be nothing short of mandatory here.

You can find out much more about every Nobel Prize winner at Nobelprize.org. Feel free to use the comments to let people know who your favourite winners (or should-be-winners) are.

Part of a series to coincide with the Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting 2010, celebrating the values of the Nobel Prize, as covered on Nature Network.