Laureates Recount Paths to the Prize

In the 105-year history of the Nobel Prize, only 758 individuals and 18 organizations have received the award. Four members of this select group reflected on the influences and experiences that shaped their lives at the HMS Alumni Day Symposium on June 23. Nobel laureates David Hubel, the John Franklin Enders professor emeritus of neurobiology at HMS; Bernard Lown, HSPH professor emeritus of cardiology; Thomas Weller, the Richard Pearson Strong professor emeritus of tropical public health at HSPH; and Joseph Murray, HMS professor emeritus of surgery, looked back with humor and perspective on the valuable collaborations and serendipitous moments that allowed them to win the Nobel.

Photo by Liza Green, HMS Media Services

Childhood influences, fortuitous collaborations, stimulating topics, and a bit of luck paved the way to the Nobel Prize, according to the personal reflections of laureates (from left) Joseph Murray, Thomas Weller, David Hubel, and Bernard Lown at the Alumni Day Symposium.

“It came as a thunderclap,” said Hubel of cutting short his shower on a cold October morning to take a phone call telling him that he and collaborator Torsten Wiesel had been awarded the 1981 prize in physiology or medicine for their neuroscience research in visual systems. “One has to realize how huge a part luck has in the outcome of these things,” he said. Among the factors in his path to the Nobel, Hubel cited small schools he attended growing up in Canada and parents who let him alone to mix chemicals, “preferably explosive ones,” in his basement laboratory.

A journalist collapsing in cardiac arrest at a press conference proved lucky for Lown, though unlucky for the journalist (who survived). Lown accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 on behalf of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War. He recalled that the conference had grown antagonistic, with journalists believing the antiwar group to be “dupes of the Soviets.” Lown quickly drew a comparison between the immediate response this single cardiac patient received and the urgency of the global threat of nuclear war. The press turned more favorable, and Lown won an audience with Mikhail Gorbachev to press his cause.

Weller’s youngest son fell ill with what appeared to be a severe form of German measles at a time when the causative virus had stymied virologists’ attempts to isolate it. Weller, winner of the 1954 Nobel in physiology or medicine for earlier work in isolating and growing cultures of the poliovirus, then isolated the rubella virus from his own son.

Yet the Nobel Prize clearly embodies more than luck. “The essence of science is a network of collaboration,” said Lown, pointing out the advance of knowledge through efforts of scientists over generations. Murray, co-winner of the 1990 Nobel in physiology or medicine with E. Donnall Thomas for discoveries in organ transplantation, said, “No one person is responsible for medical progress. We depend on each other.” All emphasized the many valuable partners, colleagues, and mentors with whom they interacted throughout their careers.

Humorous anecdotes dominated their reminiscence, but the enduring enthusiasm expressed by these laureates for their scientific pursuits throughout years of research is perhaps at the heart of their success. Hubel describes his research saying, “Every endeavor was like a fishing trip.”

Murray “reveled in the technical challenges” of his work and said he felt gratitude rather than pride for his Nobel Prize because of the opportunities he had to help patients.

Looking to the future, Hubel, reflecting on his own childhood experiences, espoused the value of small, collaborative groups—whether in grade schools or graduate laboratories. Lown acknowledged that doctors today are confronted with a web of challenges, from war to poverty. He emphasized the need to think of these not just in terms of our own country, but as global challenges, saying, “There can be no healthy United States in a sick world.”

—Kathleen Fink

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