A Nobel Prize is great. Better still is acting on it: André Picard
2020-10-13 from theglobeandmail.com
For the first time in almost a century, a scientist working in Canada has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
That achievement by Michael Houghton, director of the Li Ka Shing Institute of Applied Virology at the University of Alberta, is remarkable in itself, and it didn’t get nearly enough media attention because of the never-ending Trump coronavirus madness. (Dr. Houghton, who is British, shared the prize with two Americans, Harvey Alter and Charles Rice, for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus.)
History buffs will know that Frederick Banting won the world’s most prestigious prize in medicine in 1923 for his discovery of insulin, along with James Macleod, both of whom were working at the University of Toronto.
David Hubel was also co-winner of 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for mapping the brain’s visual cortex. While he was born and educated in Canada, he spent his entire career in the U.S.
What deserves to be spotlighted even more than the rarity of Dr. Houghton’s win, though, are the scientific findings and the process that led to the discovery, which has had a far-reaching global impact.
Read more here