Nobel Prize 2014
- You must be willing to dare
- People have approached us at the lab, wondering how is it possible for a married couple to co-work in there? Then, after some time, exclaiming: This is actually working quite well!
The Nobel centre for medicine, Saturday afternoon, and the Nobel Week is on. The three winners May-Britt and Edvard Moser and John O’Keefe meet the press together for the first time.
Se UAs interaktive tidslinje: En nobel ferd.
One of the first questions related to the fact that The Mosers are the fifth married couple throughout history to be honored by a scientific Nobel Prize. Have they met raised eyebrows in the laboratories when entering there together?
May-Britt admitted that there have been some questions, but that it has all turned out quite well – and that even other couples have been encouraged to follow in their steps.
An explanation as to why this, co-researching couple has been a success was offered by O’Keefe:
- The two of them have distinctly complementary capabilities, and they tend not to go in each other’s way. That is good.
LES OGSÅ: «Du må aldri publisere søppel»
LES OGSÅ: Moser-paret har fått flere hundre millioner kroner fra Forskningsrådet
What advices have the prize winners to offer young, aspiring scientists, and, perhaps, aspiring Nobel Prize winners?
May-Britt provided a fairly short answer:
- Follow your passions.
Edvard, a little more elaborate:
- If the ambition is to win a Nobel Prize, I am quite sure you will never get it. The motivation, your driving force, must be a question you really want to find an answer to. A mystery to unravel. This requires a willingness to dare, to think way ahead. To take risks and to step into the unknown. Then, in addition, as John has said before, one must not be conventional, not step in other people’s tracks.
LES OGSÅ: - Norge må hente talentene hit
LES OGSÅ: - They were absolutely certain to be winners and top scientists
At what point in time did they realize the Nobel Prize might be a possibility?
- To me the thought was mentioned shortly after the discovery of the grid celles, which we understood was something special, Edvard said.
- But again, if we were to have been working out of a wish to win the Nobel Prize, we would not have been here to day.
Then he added:
- All three of us share a non-academic background. This shows that you can go as far as you want. As long as you have the driving force living and working in you.
To that May-Britt adds, as an afterthought:
- You must never work with something you find boring.
LES OGSÅ: John O´Keefe blir professor II ved NTNU
LES OGSÅ: Derfor fikk Moser-paret Nobelprisen i medisin
