Scientists from over 70 countries gathered at the 2011 Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau to discuss the world’s greatest health challenges and how to tackle them. We captured some of their conversations on camera. This trailer gives you a flavour of those conversations, which ranged from cancer and ageing to grant writing and scientific collaborations. The films will be released, one a week, from 14th September to 12th October 2011.
Young researchers Jan Gralton and Sven-Eric Schelhorn are fascinated by the minute world of viruses. They have plenty of questions for Harald zur Hausen who won a Nobel Prize for proving that human papillomaviruses (HPV) can cause cervical cancer. All three are worried by public distrust of the HPV vaccine, which was made possible by zur Hausen’s work.
Nobel Laureate Eddie Fischer was born in Shanghai in 1920. Since then, China has emerged as an economic superpower. Now it’s becoming a scientific heavyweight too. Tong Qing belongs to the newest generation of Chinese scientists. She decided to study cancer after a family friend became ill with breast cancer. In this film, she tells Fischer about life and research in China today.
Camelia-Lucia Cimpianu is trying to decide between a career as a researcher or a practising doctor. In this film, she seeks advice from Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad who faced the same dilemma as a medical student in the 1960s. Murad chose the bench, and he subsequently discovered that a gas called nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. It turns out that NO plays a role in many diseases — and possibly in the head […]
Elizabeth Blackburn grew up in Hobart on the Australian island of Tasmania. It was a long journey from there to a Nobel prize and the lab she runs at the University of California in San Francisco. Malaria researcher Clare Smith is also a Hobart girl, and she’s trying to decide whether to follow in Blackburn’s footsteps and move overseas after she finishes her PhD. Karina Zillner is from Germany. Like Clare, she’s in the final stages of a PhD. She’s […]
Oliver Smithies is a toolmaker. He shared the Nobel prize for discoveries that led to the development of knockout mice. Diego Bohórquez uses mouse models to understand how our gut regulates appetite. He has wanted to meet Smithies ever since he moved from his native Ecuador to Duke University in the United States. When the two meet in Lindau they have an instant rapport and soon they’re sharing ideas about their research projects and talking about what makes a successful […]
