2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology

http://www.elsevier.com/about/history/nobel-tribute

Elsevier congratulates Dr. James E. Rothman, Dr. Randy W. Schekman and Dr. Thomas C. Südhof.

Dr. Rothman, Dr. Schekman and Dr. Südhof were jointly awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology"for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells".

They discovered how cells organize their transport system, ensuring that the molecules produced in the cell are transported to the correct location at the right time. Their findings further show how the body releases its cargo, from hormones to immune cytokines.

PART OF INTERVIEW OF SUDHOF

What apart from your family is the passion of your life?

  SUDHOF---------------I always try to understand everything I encounter—not only in science, but also historical and political events and music and movies—get to grips with the content, meaning, and process. This is immense fun, as strange as that may sound.

What is your favourite book, and why?

SODOF------------Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, because it is a microcosm of the world and Goethe's beautiful language expresses all of our potential and contradictions.

A glimpse of book Faust

FAUST-----

I’ve studied now Philosophy

And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—

And even, alas! Theology,—

From end to end, with labor keen;

And here, poor fool! with all my lore

I stand, no wiser than before:

I’m Magister—yea, Doctor—hight,

And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,

These ten years long, with many woes,

I’ve led my scholars by the nose,—

And see, that nothing can be known!

That knowledge cuts me to the bone.

I’m cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,

Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;

Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,

Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.

For this, all pleasure am I foregoing;

I do not pretend to aught worth knowing,

I do not pretend I could be a teacher

To help or convert a fellow-creature.

Then, too, I’ve neither lands nor gold,

Nor the world’s least pomp or honor hold—

No dog would endure such a curst existence!

Wherefore, from Magic I seek assistance,

That many a secret perchance I reach

Through spirit-power and spirit-speech,

And thus the bitter task forego

Of saying the things I do not know,—

That I may detect the inmost force

Which binds the world, and guides its course;

Its germs, productive powers explore,

And rummage in empty words no more!

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