AIDS Denialism: Deadly Ignorance Part I

(Click for Part II and Part III of this series)
Those of us in the skeptical community are no strangers to whacko medical theories. It seems every week there is another quack promoting a new "naturalistic" diet or treatment. By far, though, the brunt of a skeptic's time is dealing with denialism – groups of individuals denying that contemporary medical practices don't work or are even dangerous. In the last few years, the anti-vax denialists have been in the media spotlight due to their elaborate campaigns and the outspoken celebrities like Jenny McCarthy who have taken up the anti-vax fight. But there is another camp of deniers festering away in the underbelly of alternative medicine. These people are the AIDS deniers; people who claim that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus, but rather that it is actually caused by drug use. Some even go so far as to claim that HIV does not exist! Given the horrifying prevalence of AIDS in third world nations and even its alarming proliferation in developed nations, increasing support for AIDS denialism is not simply worrying but outright dangerous.

AIDS denialism has been known to me for some time, having learned about it from reading about Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis, who is one of AIDS denialism's best known proponents. Though, given Mullis' colorful personality I figured he was just a lone crank. It was not until this past week when a good friend of mine, SofiaRune, began to get comments on a Youtube video she produced about debunking the link between HIV infection rates and male circumcision. A user by the name of "mykoolaidtastesfunny" made a variety of claims about how AIDS and HIV are not linked, and how HIV has not been shown to exist. He also posted a video by a variety of AIDS "skeptics" repeating his points. Immediately we began to investigate these claims. In the following series of posts, I'll address the claims of the AIDS "skeptics". In Part I, I will focus on the video that started it all…

Mullis and More: A Menagerie of Morons

The video that was posted is as follows:



Note that I will only critique the claims made by the scientists in this video. It's not worth my time to debunk the two journalists in the video since they are not the ones making any scientific claims (especially the first one, Neville Hodgkinson, who's entire argument boils down to "I spent a week in the lab of an unnamed German scientist and he showed my unexplained data which I now believe".)



Kary Mullis: Mullis is a man known to virtually everyone in biology. His claim to fame is winning the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for the development of PCR. However, as a perfect example that even eminent scientists can hold completely insane beliefs, Mullis also believes in astrology, denies anthropogenic global warming, and believes he has conversed with an alien in the form of a glowing raccoon. He is also completely convinced that he will die in the presence of redwood trees, and is thus completely reckless when redwoods are not around, going so far as to ski down the centre of a highway far from the sight of a redwood. In the video, Mullis recalls the tale of applying to a grant from the NIH and needing to find a source for the claim that AIDS is caused by HIV. He claims that he did a search through the literature but look as he may, he could not find one. Furthermore, he claims to have asked Luc Montagier (one of the co-discoverers of HIV, along with Robert Gallo) and Montagier was unable to provide him with any sources. Shocked that there was no source for the HIV/AIDS link, Mullis became a skeptic and has denied a relationship between the two ever since. Whether or not this story is true, I have no way of telling. But it is possible to do a search of the literature to see if there are any papers showing the link between HIV and AIDS. And does Mullis' claim stand up to scrutiny?

Hell no.

A very preliminary search on PubMed allowed us to find 6 different papers¹ which show a link between infection with HIV and AIDS, more than enough necessary to support the claim that AIDS is caused by HIV. All of these papers were published between the years of 1985 and 1993, so many – if not all of them – were available to Mullis at the time he was writing his grant application². Either Mullis is incapable of doing a cursory search of scientific literature, or he isn't being entirely honest with his story. I'm inclined to believe the latter.

But I'm feeling generous. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt; maybe some of these papers had yet to be published, and perhaps he didn't have access to the journals the other papers had been published in. Perhaps Mullis could be excused for being skeptical at the time. But what about now? Those papers, and many others, are now readily available. Arguing that there was no evidence available two decades ago doesn't mean much today. Saying "Oh HIV doesn't cause AIDS because I did a search of the literature twenty years ago and found no proof" is akin to arguing that evolutionary theory is flawed because Darwin's original work from 150 years ago wasn't entirely accurate. Such an argument completely ignores scientific findings and advances made since then. This argument fails because there ARE papers that show AIDS is caused by HIV, those papers have been published as far back as 1983, and such papers continue to be published. Someone hand the deniers a copy of "Searching PubMed for Dummies".



Rodney Richards: Richards is a biochemist who founded the biotech company AMGen (though, I am assuming this is true – the only references to him I could find on Google all come from AIDS denial websites…). Richards begins talking about Peter Duesberg, the granddaddy of the AIDS denial movement (more on him later). He recalls his time at AMGen when Duesberg was invited to give a seminar. According to him, Duesberg's talk was boycotted by the other scientists working at AMGen. He notes that he thought this was odd and it prompted him to "go to the library". What did he find in his research? He doesn't say. Richards actually does not make an argument at all. He just says "that was 12 years ago and I've been studying this issue ever since". What Richards is doing is a subtle argument from authority; he is basically saying "I'm a scientist who has studied AIDS for 12 years, and I don't believe in it, therefore you can be confidant that HIV does not cause AIDS". He doesn't need to present an argument because his sycophants will simply hide behind his status as a scientist with a PhD.

He also implies that the truth about AIDS is being covered up by some scientific conspiracy, a notion that is common with alt-med movements. Such an argument, however, is laughable, considering that in the past, the editor-in-chief of Science has explicitly stated his support for Duesberg's right to air his views and to do his research, going so far as to voice his support for Duesberg's grant applications³ (he was not, of course, agreeing with Duesberg's views). It is not surprising, though, that scientists don't want to listen to Duesberg's claims. For scientists, the issue is settled – AIDS is caused by HIV. There is ample evidence built up over the last 30 years that shows this to be the case. It is the same reason why evolutionary biologists don't invite creationists to speak at evolutionary biology conferences; their claims are not supported by the scientific evidence and are a waste of time to deal with. This should not be confused with some sort of conspiracy to silence the anti-AIDS crowd. They have every right to express their views – and maybe when they have some real evidence, we'll listen.



Christian Fiala: As I watched Fiala's portion of the video I quickly began to ask myself "How on Earth did this man ever get a PhD?" Fiala's argument is so incredibly wrong that it is hard to believe that his segment isn't satire. In case you didn't catch his argument due to a massive brain haemorrhage from stupid overload, it goes like this: HIV spread to the heterosexual population in the 80s from the homosexual population. This is unlikely, he says, because the virus' method of transmission is predetermined and does not change easily. How did the virus know, he muses, that the risk group was almost all affected and it had to "break out" into a new population? Fiala claims that transmission from the homosexual population to the heterosexual population would require the virus to gain some sort of sentience and realize it needs to move out. This is impossible so, he claims, the appearance of AIDS in heterosexuals could not have been caused by HIV.

Are you done laughing?

The virus, of course, does not need to have some kind of sentient knowledge of its situation to transfer from one population to the other. In fact, we know EXACTLY how the virus moved into the heterosexual population. Blood samples used for blood transfusion are now closely screened for HIV, but back in the 80s, before we really knew much about the virus, it wasn't. Many members of a subset of the homosexual community were frequent blood donors, and their samples would have all been tainted. For people with haemophilia, blood transfusions can be an important life saving procedure, and in many instances, blood from HIV positive samples was used. It wasn't long until AIDS began to show up in haemophiliacs, and then in the general population. At no point did the virus knowingly decide to move into another population, and at no point did the mode of transmission change. The movement of the virus through populations is well known and well documented, so Fiala's argument falls flat on its face.

Peter Duesberg, Kingpin of Denial: Rodney Richards, in his video appearance, mentions a man by the name of Peter Duesberg. Anyone who looks into the AIDS denialist issue is bound to come across references to him; his name has practically become synonymous with the AIDS "skeptic" movement. In 1987, Duesberg published a paper in the journal Cancer Research⁴ where he claimed that HIV is simply a harmless passenger virus⁵. At that time, there was much not known about how the HIV virus causes AIDS, and Duesberg could perhaps be excused for being skeptical at the time. Nevertheless, the uncertainty in what mechanism the HIV virus utilized was dwarfed by the voluminous epidemiological data that suggested HIV as the cause. In the years following, the precise molecular mechanism of HIV's virulence has been elucidated, and there really is no longer any cause for skepticism. Duesberg nonetheless clings to his beliefs.

So what does Duesberg attribute AIDS to, if not to HIV? He and his followers believe that AIDS is actually caused by drug use – particularly intravenous drugs and nitrite inhalants – as well as malnutrition. There are many reasons why this cannot be the case. If AIDS is caused by drug use, then why is it that all drug users do not contract AIDS? And of the subset of drug users that do get AIDS, why do they all test positive for HIV? Why do we only find HIV in people who have AIDS or eventually progress to AIDS, if it is just a harmless virus with no real pathology? Why does AIDS pass from mother to child if it is not due to a transmissible pathogen? Surely newborn infants are not heavy drug users. These questions need to be addressed by Duesberg if he wishes his ideas to have any kind of validity, and to date, neither Duesberg nor his followers have been able to adequately provide a response.

Why does Duesberg continue to be a boil on the face of AIDS research if his ideas are patently ridiculous? Perhaps it is due to the false sense that his ideas are taken seriously by other members of the scientific community. Many AIDS "skeptics" will frequently cite numbers of scientists that supposedly support Duesberg. But these are often lists of scientists that do NOT believe Duesberg is correct on the AIDS/HIV issue; they merely support his right to investigate the issue and to voice his opinions. The credibility of his scientific views is falsely inflated this way.



These are the prominent faces in the AIDS denialist world. Continuing on into Part II, I'll look at Koch's Postulates, how they relate to AIDS, and how they confirm that HIV really is the cause.

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1. Those papers are as follows:
   -Fauci A.S. "Multifactorial nature of human immunodeficiency virus disease: implications for therapy". Science 1993.262:1011-1017.
   
   -Weiss R.A. "How does HIV cause AIDS?" Science 1993.260:1273-1278.
   
   -Gallo R.C., Satin P.S., Gelmann E.P., Roberto Gumff M. "Isolation human T-cell leukemia virus in acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)". Science 1983. 220:865-867.
   
   -Gallo R.C. et al "Frequent detection and isolation of cytopathic retroviruses (HTLV-III) from patients with AIDS and at risk from AIDS". Science 1984. 224:500-503.
   
   - Schechter M.T. et al "HIV-1 and the aetiology of AIDS". British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV AIDS, Vancouver, Canada, Lancet 1993. 341:658-659.
   
   - Weiss R.A., Jaffe H.A. "Duesberg, HIV and AIDS". Nature 1990. 345:659-660.
   
   
   
2. Actually, with a little math, we can see that all of these papers were available to Mullis, at least at the time his clip was filmed. As you will see in the clip with Rodney Richards, Richards claims that he has been researching AIDS and HIV for 12 years. Robert Gallo's papers which linked HIV with AIDS was published in 1983. If Richards began his research that very same year, then his clip was filmed 12 years later, in 1995 (that is, of course, the earliest it could have been filmed – it may have been filmed at an even later point). It is not unreasonable to think that Mullis' part was filmed around the same time. So, at the very earliest, Mullis' clip was filmed in 1995, after all of the papers had been published. He has no excuse for making the claims he does.
   
   
3. Cohen J. "The Duesberg phenomenon". Science. 1994 (Issue 266, 1642-1644)
   
   
4. Deusberg P. "Retroviruses as carcinogens and pathogens: Expectations and reality". Cancer Research Issue 47 (1987)
   
   
5. Gallo has actually challenged Duesberg to infect himself with HIV, if he really believes so strongly that it is harmless. Duesberg has, of course, backed down from this challenge, saying he could never get the proper approval of an ethics board to do it.

HIV and Aids Denialism: Intense Dumbosity

So I'm working on a new post about HIV and AIDS denialism (yes, AIDS denialists are real!). It's taking me a while to do it though, but I will have it up eventually.Really.

EDIT: It's finished. I split it into three parts to keep it from being too long to read all at once.

Part I: Deadly Ignorance
Part II: Koch's Postulates, AIDS and More Wackaloonery
Part III: Fuzzy Math and Distorted Reality

Arsenic Life - ZOMG! The straight dope on extremophiles and arsenic.

By now you may have heard today's big announcement in Science¹ of the discovery of extremophile bacteria that use arsenic in their DNA rather than phosphorous. This discovery has been played up by the media (as usual) as being a major discovery that will cause scientists to "rewrite the story of life" or other such hyperbole-based headlines. And while definitely interesting, this discovery, unfortunately, is just not a major finding.

What the discovery is:

The team of researchers were concerned with a lake in California called Mono Lake. This lake itself is particularly interesting: it is highly alkaline, with a pH at around 10, so it is very basic (remember that water has a neutral pH of 7, and that the pH scale is logarithmic, so the lake is 1000 times more alkaline than a regular freshwater lake). The lake also contains quite high levels of arsenic, an element that is highly poisonous to life. The scientists, aware that extremophile bacteria just love to live in what we would normally consider absolutely hostile conditions, were curious about what kind of microbial life lived in the lake.

What they found were microbes that not only lived happily in the highly alkaline, arsenic-laden conditions, but actually utilized arsenic in place of phosphorous in their biochemistry: their DNA contained arsenic where it normally would have a phosphate backbone and even some of their amino acids contained arsenic instead of phosphorous. They did this by growing the bacteria in media containing radiolabelled arsenic, and after allowing the bacteria time to utilize the arsenic as they pleased, found that the radiolabelled atoms ended up in the DNA, amino acids and other normally phosphorus-containing molecules.

What this DOESN'T mean:

This does not mean we have discovered "alien" life, like some media outlets have been saying. Such life easily fits in with what we know about extremophile bacteria - they are resilient enough to find a way to use toxic environments to their advantage.

It also doesn't mean that we need to re-examine the way we think early life evolved. It is unlikely this discovery says anything about evolutionary history (though it might say volumes about how evolution can be incredibly innovative!).

What it DOES mean:

It does mean that evolution can work in wondrous ways that we hadn't even imagined. Make no mistake, however - this finding surely fits within current evolutionary theory.

It also means, on a more hypothetical level, that astrobiologists may need to broaden their definitions of "life" when searching for the signs of life outside of our planetary system.

Why this discovery isn't as big of a deal as it first seems:

Although at first the announcement of life that uses arsenic as a building block is exciting, a little critical thinking shows that there is reason for skepticism. The researchers studied the microbes by slowly increasing the level of arsenic in the media they were grown in. After multiple rounds of this, they were left with microbes that were found to have arsenic in their DNA and amino acids. However, this method leaves open the possibility that they were simply selecting for microbes that could use arsenic under high arsenic/low phosphorous levels. In other words, this experiment does not show that using arsenic is the natural way these microbes live. It is entirely possible that they use phosphorous for their important biochemical molecules like ever other microbe, and under stressful conditions, switch to different mode where they use arsenic instead. It's even possible that after successive rounds of increasing arsenic content, the team artificially selected for microbes that had this ability: in effect, they may have forced the microbes to evolve a new pathway that does not exist in nature.

This finding doesn't say alot about evolutionary history either: Lake Mono is a relativley recent geological feature, so it's likely the microbes adapted to such an environment relatively recently also.

Furthermore, the team did not attempt to determine HOW the bacteria incorporate arsenic into their DNA and amino acids: what biochemical pathways are involved? Do they use NTAs instead of NTPs? How stable would such molecules be - phosphate plays an important role in stabilizing the structure of DNA, so would the use of arsenic affect this? Are such molecules recognised by the microbes' DNA polymerase? Or by any important enzymes, for that matter? Arsenic is a larger atom than phosphorous - will this alter the shape and size of the major and minor grooves and if so, how does this affect the binding of proteins? Is arsenic ALWAYS used by these microbes, even in low arsenic/high phosphorous levels? These questions are just begging to be answered, and until they are, I think the vast majority of molecular biologists and biochemists will remain skeptical.

An interesting find, for sure - the very fact that organisms can use arsenic to live is exciting - but a "new form of life" or even "arsenic-based life"? Well, there's really no evidence to support such claims at the moment.

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PZ over at Pharyngula has a great rundown of why calling this "arsenic based life" is silly, echoing many of the points I made above.

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1. Wolfe-Simon F, Blum JS, Kulp TR, Gordon GW, Hoeft SE, Pett-Ridge J, Stolz JF, Webb SM, Weber PK, Davies PCW, Anbar AD, Oremland RS (2010) A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1197258.

Next-Generation DNA sequencing: The Future is Now! Part 1: Pyrosequencing

Are you tired of sequencing your gene of interest 800bp at a time? Sick of straining your eyes staring at a fuzzy chromatogram? Fed up with waiting hours for your PCR to finish only to realize you forgot to add ddNTPs to your reaction mix? Well, nex-gen DNA sequencing is for YOU!

Cheesy sales-schtick aside, next-generation DNA sequencing technologies are on the rise (and are poised to soon become current-gen technologies - some already are!). The days of loading your PCR'd sequencing mix onto an automated capillary sequencer may soon be numbered. So, to make the change of power of our mighty sequencing overlords a little easier, this series of posts will be dedicated to how the upcoming technologies work, their advantages over conventional sequencing technologies, and their problems.

Today's post: Pyrosequencing

Pyrosequencing is perhaps the one Next-Gen sequencing technology that is the most like current generation automated sequencing (if you need a reminder on how that works, I've written about it in the past). It still requires primer design, and rounds of PCR, but the method of detection of incorporated nucleotides differs.

Pyrosequencing starts by adding your PCR'd sequence to a reaction mix that contains DNA polymerase, and three important enzymes: DNA sulfurylase, apyrase and luciferase. DNA sylfurylase is an enzyme that converts a pyrophosphate molecule into ATP. Luciferase is an enzyme which uses ATP to convert luciferin into oxyluciferin, resulting in the emission of light. Apyrase's job is to degrade unincorporated nucleotides. Given that the addition of a nucleotide into a growing DNA strand results in the release of a pyrophosphate molecule, keen readers might already see how pyrosequencing works.

With conventional automated chain-termination sequencing techniques, we add all of our dNTPs to the reaction mix at once; they can easily be distinguished because each base has a different fluorescently labelled dye bound to it. With pyrosequencing, however, one cannot toss in all the nucleotides at the same time. Rather, we have to add each one sequentially for each nucleotide in the sequence. That is, we first do a reaction with A, then with T, then with C and lastly with G. We then repeat this cycle over and over until the sequencing reaction is complete (if this sounds confusing, hopefully the diagram and video below will clarify it). Why we do this will be apparent in a moment.

When a nucleotide is incorporated into the DNA strand, a pyrophosphate molecule is liberated¹. This pyrophosphate molecule can then be converted by the DNA sulfurylase into a molecule of ATP. Luciferase picks up this ATP² molecule and uses it to catalyze the conversion of luciferin to oxyluciferin. This chemical conversion results in the emission of a photon. This chain of events, then, means when a nucleotide is added by DNA polymerase to the growing DNA chain, we get the emission of light. A computer with a suitable detector could detect this light, and we would have an indication of when a nucleotide was added in our sequencing reaction.

But if we add all of our dNTPs at once, then how do we know which ones are being ? This is why we only add one nucleotide to the mix at a time. First the reaction is run using dATP. We then add apyrase to remove any remaining nucleotides and repeat with dCTP, and so on. If we add the nucleotides one at a time, then they will be incorporated (or not incorporated) into the sequence one at a time, and consequently we get one light signal at a time.

The light signals are recorded on a chart called a pyrogram. This chart records not only which nucleotides resulted in the emission of light but also the intensity of that signal. If three dTTP molecules were incorporated at once, then there would be three photons emitted and three times as much light; this would result in a triple peak on the pyrogram. From the pyrogram, then, one could easily read off the exact DNA sequence. The figure to the left shows one such pyrogram. The sequence in this example would be GCAGGCCT.




The following video puts the whole process together nicely.



So why would one choose pyrosequencing over automated chain-termination methods? Well, for one, it's cheaper (though, not as cheap as some of the other upcoming next-generation sequencing methods). Practically, it's easier to do, since it doesn't require running through gels or capillaries. Analyzing the resulting pyrogram is also easier than analyzing a chromatogram. Chromatograms can often be spotted with "N"s when the computer cannot tell if the wavelength of light from a dye is one color or the other; however, with pyrosequencing, detection is binary - either a photon is emitted or not - so results are more accurate and clearer.

Though, pyrosequencing does have it's drawbacks. It requires a greater number of PCR cycles than traditional sequencing does, so it may take longer to complete, especially for longer sequences. Currently, a typical read of sequence data from pyrosequencing is about 300 to 500bp - shorter than the typical 800 to 1200bp you get from chain-termination methods. This, however, is likely to improve as the technology advances and becomes more refined. The shorter reads, though, make it tough to sequence genomic regions containing high amounts of repetitive DNA.

So that is pyrosequencing in a nutshell. Next time: Helicos sequencing!

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1. NTPs are triphosphates (that's what the TP stands for!), meaning each nucleoside (base+sugar) is attached to a phosphate molecule. To add a nucleotide to a growing DNA strand, the reaction requires an input of energy. This energy comes from the breaking of the triphosphate chain in each nucleotide; two phosphates are broken off and released as a pyrophosphate (PP_i) molecule, and the remaining portion of the nucleotide is attached to the hydroxyl group on the 3' carbon of the previous nucleotide in the sequence.

2. Observant readers might be confused here. Since luciferase requires ATP to convert luciferin to oxyluciferin, won't this cause a problem when we add dATP to the sequencing reaction? Won't there be competition between DNA polymerase and luciferase? Well, if you thought that, then you'd be right! For this reason, we use dATPαS instead of dATP for pyrosequencing. This molecule has a sulfur atom attached to the α phosphate of the nucleotide, and cannot be used as a substrate by luciferase. Problem solved!

Dawkins' Answers Some Questions

His answers are interesting enough, but the best part starts at 11:42, when he reads out some of his hate mail.

"Science knows it doesn't know everything. Otherwise, it'd stop."

Dara O'Briain is great. Gotta love his takedown of homeopaths, nutritions and other snake oil salesmen.

Have an hour to spend and nothing to do?

Then I suggest watching this video of Richard Dawkins having a chat with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Two brilliant minds and amazing popularizers of science. DeGrasse Tyson is as charismatic as ever...I'd love to get a chance to meet him. If anyone can get people excited about sicence, it's him.

The Stupid, It Burns....

The ever laughable (and pitiable) Ken Ham has a little segment on the Answers In Genesis website called Kids Answers, where he takes time out of his busy day of ignoring evidence and thinking up new ways to sidestep logic and reason to answer questions sent to him by children. A little rascal named Brendon asked him a very good question that points out just one aspect of the absurdity that Young Earth creationists believe, and Ham has responded with this little gem (emphasis mine):

Q-If God created the world 6,000 years ago or so, why are stars millions of light years away?

A-Brendon, what a question! Yes, we know from the dates God gives us in the Bible that He did create the whole universe about 6,000 years ago. When we hear the term light-year, we need to realize it is not a measure of time but a measure of distance, telling us how far away something is. Distant stars and galaxies might be millions of light-years away, but that doesn’t mean that it took millions of years for the light to get here, it just means it is really far away!

Really, Ken? Way to show that you really are absolutely ignorant. I'm sure I don't need to explain it to anyone reading this, but a lightyear is defined as the distance that light travels in one year. That's why it's called a light year. It takes one year for light to travel one lightyear, it takes 10 years for it to travel ten lightyears, and so on. So yes, if we observe an object a million lightyears away, it means precisely that it took the light a million years to reach us.

Do creationists like Ham really want to be taken seriously? Because time and time again they display such a complete dearth of understanding even the most simple and fundamental concepts of science. There's hardly a better example than that above.


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Super nerdy Star Wars-geek aside: Ham isn't the only one who confuses measurements of space and time - George Lucas is guilty of this as well! In Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke and Obi-wan meet Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina for the first time. When Luke admits he's never heard of the Millennium Falcon, Han tells him that the Falcon completed the Kessel Run in "less than twelve parsecs", obviously meaning to brag that he was able to complete the course quicker than any other pilot. However, a parsec is a measurement of distance, equal to 3.26 lightyears, and not a measurement of time.

Hardcore Star Wars nerds such as myself, though, will argue that what Han meant was that he was able to navigate the course by taking a shorter route that took him dangerously close to a black hole instead of flying the entire 18 parsec course. He was thus bragging about his piloting skills rather than his speed.

2010 Nobel in Medicine/Physiology goes to...

Robert Edwards for his work on the development of in vitro fertilization.

This came as a bit of a surprise, since his work on IVF was completed some 3 decades ago, and the prize is generally given to work done in the last 10 years.

Anyway, it is work that is worthy of a Nobel prize, if a bit unexpected. Now to guess who wins the prize in Physics tomorrow...

2010 Nobels - time to place your bets.

Next week the Nobel Prizes for 2010 will be announced. Who are your picks for this year?

A lot of people seem to be putting their money on Craig Venter for the prize in Medicine/Physiology this year. Probably because of all the media attention he's received in the last little while. And though he has done some important things for the field, I'm a bit unsure. Perhaps it's a bit soon for a Nobel for him? Though I think he might be a good choice, I'm kinda hoping it goes to Maire-Claire King for her work on detecting the variants of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that are associated with breast cancer. This fits all the criteria for the prize - revolutionary work which has had a practical and important real-world application. Also, it would be the second year in a row that the prize in Medicine has gone to a female (women laureates are few and far between, unfortunately).

I dont really know much about Physics and Chemistry to make a guess at who the prizes in those categories will go to. Im unlikely to even understand the work of whoever wins the Physics prize but Im looking forward to seeing who wins in Chemistry.

We molecular biologist types are lucky: our work often qualifies us for both the Medicine/Physiology and the Chemistry prizes!