2009 Nobel Prizes and The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

The Nobel Prize

The foundations of the Nobel Prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth for its establishment. Since 1901, the prize has honored men and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, for work in peace and now economics. Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said US President Barack Obama won the award for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples and for his work on nuclear non-proliferation.

US President Barack Obama said he was surprised and humbled by being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and said he doubted he deserved to be honored alongside luminaries who had won the award. Obama's reaction.

Physiology or Medicine

US trio Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol W Greider and Jack W Szostak won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for discovering an enzyme which helps chromosomes in cells stay eternally young, the Nobel jury said.

Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak won the 2009 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology on Monday for their work on chromosomes. Here are some details about the winners:

Literature

Herta Mueller, a Romanian-born writer who produced tales of the disenfranchised and fought for free speech, has won the 2009 Nobel prize for literature. She made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories.

The judges, apparently, could not help themselves. Just two days after a Nobel Prize official worried the literature committee was too "Eurocentric," the winner for 2009 was Herta Mueller, a Romanian-born writer once censored in her native country.

Physics

Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for physics for work in fibre-optics and in semiconductors, the prize committee said on Tuesday.

Chemistry

Indian-American Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, 57, has won this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry, the Nobel Foundation announced on Wednesday. He shares it with Thomas Steitz, an American, and Ada Yonath, an Israeli, reports Anika Gupta.

A delighted Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan said that he was deeply indebted to his associates, students and researchers in his Cambridge-based laboratory for the path-breaking work he has conducted in the area of ribosomes.

Economic Sciences

                                       Ostrom, the first woman to win

Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson of the United States won the 2009 Nobel Economics Prize for their work on the organisation of cooperation in economic governance, the Nobel jury announced today. Ostrom is the first woman to win the Economics Prize, which has been awarded since 1969.

Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Economics Prize since it was first awarded 40 years ago, said she was humbled and surprised at the honour on Monday.