Results are in for the Sweet 16 round of October Madness, Sigma Xi's 2015 public Nobel Prize prediction contest! Thanks to everyone who voted for your top picks for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, chemistry, and physics.
See who made it through to the Elite 8 round, then vote to secure your favorites in the Final 4. Voting for the Elite 8 ends on midnight EDT on Monday, September 7. Due to the Labor Day holiday, we plan to post results and kick off Final 4 voting on September 9.
Sweet 16 Voting Results
* William Moerner, Michael Orrit, and Richard Zare won the popular vote for the chemistry prize for single-molecule spectroscopy and application of lasers. However, because we realized Moerner already won a Nobel Prize in 2014 for his work on super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, which relates to his work in single-molecule spectroscopy, his group does not advance to the Elite 8 round.
Elite 8 Voting
Physiology or Medicine
Vote here for your predictions for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The October Madness physiology or medicine Elite 8 match-ups are:
1.
J. Craig Venter, Francis Collins, and Eric Lander for the human genome sequence
VS.
Arthur Horwich and F.-Ulrich Hartl for protein folding
2.
Nicholas Lydon, Brian J. Druker, and Charles L. Sawyers for development of chronic myelogenous leukemia treatments
VS.
Joseph Altman and Elizabeth Gould for adult neurogenesis
3.
David J. Julius for investigations on the molecular basis for pain and thermosensation
VS.
Ronald D. Vale for work on molecular motor proteins kinesin and dynein
4.
Mark Ptashne for molecular studies of gene recognition
VS.
Kazutoshi Mori and Peter Walter for unfolded protein response pathway
Chemistry
Vote here for your predictions for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The Elite 8 October Madness chemistry match-ups are:
1.
Mildred Dresselhaus for carbon chemistry
VS.
Sir Alec Jeffreys for DNA profiling
2.
Harry Gray, Stephen Lippard, Richard Holm for work in bioinorganic chemistry
VS.
John B. Goodenough for lithium-ion batteries
3.
Ching W. Tang and Steven Van Slyke for organic light emitting diodes
VS.
Christopher Walsh and JoAnne Stubbe for mechanistic enzymology
4.
Michael Grätzel for solar cells
VS.
Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier for the CRISPR gene editing tool
Physics
Vote here for your predictions for the Nobel Prize in Physics
The Elite 8 October Madness physics match-ups are:
1.
Vera Rubin and Kent Ford for dark matter
VS.
Sir Michael Berry and Yakir Aharonov for quantum mechanics
2.
Margaret Geller for mapping the universe
VS.
Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger and John Clauser for quantum entanglement
3.
Rob Schoelkopf and Michel Devoret for superconducting qubits and microwave photons
VS.
Geoffrey Marcy, Michel Mayor, and Didier Queloz for discovery of extrasolar planets
4.
Art McDonald for neutrino oscillations
VS.
Sir John Pendry, David R. Smith, and Ulf Leonhardt for discovery of negative refraction
Heather Thorstensen is the manager of communications for Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society.