List of Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895. It is awarded by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. The prize recognizes a single discovery or a body of work that has conferred the greatest benefit to humankind in the fields of physiology or medicine. Nominations are solicited from qualified professionals, and the selection process is confidential for 50 years. The prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma, and a monetary award, the amount of which varies.

Notably, the prize can be shared among up to three laureates, but it cannot be awarded posthumously unless the laureate died after the announcement. The youngest laureate was Frederick G. Banting, who was 32 when he won in 1923 for the discovery of insulin; the oldest was Peyton Rous, who was 87 in 1966 for his work on tumor-inducing viruses.¹

Many laureates have made epochal contributions. Emil von Behring received the first prize in 1901 for serum therapy against diphtheria. In 1928, Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, but the prize was awarded in 1945 to Fleming, Ernst Chain, and Howard Florey for its development. Other landmark awards include the 1953 prize to Hans Krebs for the citric acid cycle, the 1962 prize to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins for the DNA double helix, and the 1983 prize to Barbara McClintock for mobile genetic elements.

Some prizes have been controversial, such as the 1949 award to António Egas Moniz for prefrontal leucotomy, which later fell out of favor. The 2019 prize went to William Kaelin, Peter Ratcliffe, and Gregg Semenza for their discovery of how cells sense oxygen, a mechanism with broad therapeutic implications.

As of 2023, 227 individuals have received the prize, with 13 women among them. The first woman to win was Gerty Cori in 1947 for glycogen metabolism. The most recent woman laureate is Katalin Karikó, who shared the 2023 prize for nucleoside base modifications enabling mRNA vaccines. The average age of laureates is about 58, and the prize has been shared in about 60% of the years.

The prize has been withheld in 65 years, often during World War I and II, and in some years no prize was given because nominations did not meet the criteria. The longest gap was from 1940 to 1942. The prize has also been awarded to only one person in many years, but since 1950, it has been shared more frequently.

Beyond the famous names, the list includes lesser-known but significant laureates. For example, Niels Ryberg Finsen won in 1903 for light therapy for lupus vulgaris, a pioneering use of phototherapy. In 1927, Julius Wagner-Jauregg was awarded for malarial therapy for general paralysis of the insane, a now-obsolete but historically important treatment. The 1979 prize went to Allan Cormack and Godfrey Hounsfield for the development of computed tomography (CT scanning), which revolutionized medical imaging.

Some laureates made contributions outside medicine: Alexis Carrel, who won in 1912 for vascular suturing, later became a proponent of eugenics, tarnishing his legacy. The prize has also been awarded for work on behavior, such as the 1973 prize to Karl von Frisch, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen for animal behavior studies. Additionally, the prize has been awarded to a single person only 39 times, and the youngest laureate ever was William Lawrence Bragg, though he won in physics, not medicine.²

The Nobel Assembly, consisting of 50 professors at Karolinska Institutet, selects the laureates. Nominations are invited from previous laureates, professors of medicine, and other qualified individuals. The process is rigorous, with a Nobel Committee evaluating candidates over several months. The prize has faced criticism for overlooking important discoveries, such as the work of Rosalind Franklin on DNA, and for sometimes being awarded decades after the discovery, as with Peyton Rous.

In 2023, the prize for mRNA vaccine technology was widely anticipated, but the Nobel Committee chose to honor Karikó and Drew Weissman for their basic research, not the vaccine itself. The prize has also been awarded to non-physicians, such as the 1979 prize to a physicist and an engineer. The confidentiality of nominations means that many deserving scientists remain unrecognized.

Nobel Assembly

The body at Karolinska Institutet that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Laureate

A recipient of a Nobel Prize.

Physiology

The branch of biology dealing with the functions and activities of living organisms.