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A12 SCIENCE
Monday 5 october 2020

Nobel Prizes and COVID-19: Slow, basic science may pay off

By SETH BORENSTEIN als. Airplanes are designed
AP Science Writer at the very edge of what
While the world wants is possible. Even cars are
flashy quick fixes for every- completely dependent on
thing, especially massive basic science.''
threats like the coronavirus But some people don't
and global warming, next make that connection.
week's Nobel Prizes remind Adam Riess, who won
us that in science, slow and the 2011 Nobel in physics,
steady pays off. and Tyson said this is es-
It may soon do so again. pecially noticeable when
Science builds upon pre- people who deny climate
vious work, with thinkers science or vaccine effec-
"standing on the shoulders tiveness do so while reach-
of giants," as Isaac New- ing fellow nonbelievers on
ton put it, and it starts with smartphones and Google
basic research aimed at searches made possible
understanding a problem because of basic science
before fixing it. research.
It's that type of basic sci- "Maybe, maybe science
ence that the Nobels usu- needs a PR agent, OK?"
ally reward, often years or Tyson said in an interview.
decades after a discovery, In this April 17, 2015, file photo, a national library employee shows a gold Nobel Prize medal in "Maybe with a new discov-
because it can take that Bogota, Colombia. ery in science in a way that
long to realize the implica- Associated Press affects your life outcomes,
tions. the TV commercials say,
Slow and steady success of Sciences. ies from 20 years ago are of the Hayden Planetarium. 'Did you know this? This
in science has made re- The coronavirus was se- going to be key to treat- How about seeing bet- thing that you're using was
searchers hopeful in the quenced in a matter of ing and preventing CO- ter, without glasses, thanks invented here in this lab
fight against the pandem- weeks, testing became VID next year," said Sudip to LASIK surgery? That by this person. And it was
ic. It even offers a glimmer available quickly, and vac- Parikh, CEO of the Ameri- stemmed from research brought to market by this
of climate optimism. cines that would normally can Association for the into precise lasers that led company. And now you're
Many years of advances take years may be devel- Advancement of Science. to the 2018 Nobel for phys- using it and enjoying it.'
in basic molecular sci- oped in a year or less, and "That was made possible by ics, but was also the prod- Stop in silence. 'You're wel-
ence, some of them al- "it's all been built on the basic research.'' uct of an accident in which come.'"
ready Nobel Prize-winning, back of basic science ad- Basic research comes first. a researcher got lasered in As for fixing climate
have given the world tools vances that have been de- The benefits are typically the eye, said microbiologist change, Mexican chem-
for fast virus identification veloped in the past three reaped only later, in what is Rita Colwell, former head ist Mario Molina has hope
and speeded up the de- decades," McNutt said. called applied science. of the U.S. National Science that the world will be able
velopment of testing. And She pointed to gene se- "Without basic science, you Foundation. to solve the problem be-
now they tantalize us with quencing and polymerase won't have cutting-edge And those lasers used con- cause of the work that led
the prospect of COVID-19 chain reaction, which al- applied science," said cepts that date back to to his 1995 Nobel Prize.
treatments and ultimately lows for multiple copying Frances Arnold, a Caltech Albert Einstein, said British He and others discovered
a vaccine, perhaps within of precise DNA segments. chemical engineer who Royal Astronomer Martin that industrial chemicals
a few months. That latter discovery won won the 2018 Nobel in Rees. known as chlorofluorocar-
"This could be science's fin- the 1993 Nobel in chemis- chemistry. John Mather, who won the bons were reaching high
est hour. This could be the try. Nobel-winning basic re- 2006 physics Nobel for cos- into the atmosphere and
time when we deliver, not And even further back, in search has allowed us to mology, which is the study eating away at Earth's pro-
just for the nation but the 1984, the Nobel in medicine see the world in a whole of the origin of the universe tective ozone layer. He dis-
world, the miracle that will went to a team for theo- new light. and is thus the ultimate ba- covered this many years
save us," said geophysicist ries on how to manipulate Do you like white, efficient sic science, said nearly ev- before an ozone hole de-
Marcia McNutt, president the immune system using LED light to replace the erything we use around us veloped over Antarctica.
of the National Academy something called mono- nasty fluorescent hum of is there because of basic His work and the opening
clonal antibodies. Now industrial lighting or ener- science. of the hole led to a 1987
those antibodies are one of gy-gobbling incandescent "Engineers and entrepre- international agreement to
the best hopes for a treat- bulbs? A key part of those neurs use this knowledge ban those ozone-depleting
ment for the coronavirus. lights are blue light-emitting to build commercial em- chemicals, and the hole
"Despite the politics, de- diodes, and their discov- pires," he said. "Doctors use has started shrinking. Now
spite whatever other things ery won the 2014 Nobel in what we find to develop Molina hopes that kind of
are slowing us down, No- physics, said astrophysicist new cures. Architects build action can be applied to
bel Prize-winning discover- Neil deGrasse Tyson, head houses with modern materi- what he calls "the climate
emergency."
"That's why I'm optimistic.
Because we do have one
example of a global prob-
lem where practically all
the countries of the planet
agreed to work together.
The ozone layer is healing. It
takes quite awhile," Molina
said. "But it's working, slowly.
So it can be done."q