The 2023 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to a trio of scientists who worked to discover and develop quantum dots, used in LED lights and TV screens, as well as by surgeons when removing cancer tissue.
The prize was won by Moungi Bawendi, Louis Brus and Alexei Ekimov, the Nobel committee for chemistry announced in Stockholm on Wednesday.
“For a long time, nobody thought you could ever actually make such small particles. But this year’s laureates succeeded,” said Johan Aqvist, chair of the committee.
When did they do this? Nobel committee doesn’t always say “Hey, nice discovery heres an award” they often wait to see how it pans out. Example: the folk who laid the groundwork so we could get the covid-19 mrna vaccines got prizes this year. I don’t know how long ago they did that work but it didn’t start in 2019.
Nobel prizes are usually at minimum 20 years after the work was performed. Kariko and Weissman are on the close end of the bell curve, having done much of their RNA injection research in the mid 2000s, with their major breakthrough happening in 2005.
Looks like they started back in the 80s, but it wasn’t commercialized until the early 2010s if I remember