Celebrating Heroes

The distractions of current events keep us from celebrating true heroes. Over the past several days, the winners of the Nobel Prize have been named in fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, and peace. These individuals have dedicated their lives to the greater good and received deserved recognition. Their work affects our everyday lives. 

In case you missed hearing about them, here’s a recap. The descriptions are directly from the Nobel website. For more information, go there, and read about these amazing people.

Medicine
Drs. James P. Allison & Tasuku Honio: “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”

I watched an interview with Dr. Allison on PBS. He explained his research that saved a young woman who’d been diagnosed with multiple melanoma cancer. His treatment cured her. She was able to marry and have two children and attended Dr. Allison’s 70^th birthday party.

Physics
Arthur Ashkin, for the optical tweezers and their application to biological systems.”

In other words, his work with lazers and eyes. My husband and countless others have had successful lazer surgery. Ashkin received half the prize and the other half went to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland, “for their method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.”

Chemistry
Frances H. Arnold, half, ”for the directed evolution of enzymes” and the other half jointly to George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter ”for the phage display of peptides and antibodies”. The laureates have been “been inspired by the power of evolution and used the same principles – genetic change and selection – to develop proteins that solve mankind’s chemical problems.

Peace
Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

I implore you to read about these heroes, especially given the #MeToo movement and current news regarding the Supreme Court. Dr. Mukwege has treated thousands of victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Murad, herself a victim of multiple rapes at the hands of the Islamic State in Iraq, chose to speak up about her experiences in hopes of drawing attention to the issue and helping others.

The Economics award will be announced next week.

Additionally this week, 25 people received the MacArthur Genius Awards, given to individuals pursuing creative endeavors in their professions. Recipients this year include scientists, writers, artists, and advocates for social justice and human rights.

These inspiring stories gave me some hope after a dreadful week watching the Supreme Court hearings.

There are plenty of people dedicated to helping others, who maintain ethical standards and conduct themselves with no regard to politics.

These people are working to repair the world.

These are the people I want my grandchildren to read about and emulate when they grow up.