<p>STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes, opening a potential new avenue for fighting diseases as diverse as cancer and AIDS.</p>
<p>The process, called RNA interference, also is being studied for treating such conditions as hepatitis virus infection and heart disease. It is already widely used in basic science as a method to study the function of genes.</p>
<p>Fire, 47, of Stanford University, and Mello, 45, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, published their seminal work in a 1998 paper.</p>
<p>The point is that he’s affiliated with Stanford University, and that’s something we’re proud of. We’re not contesting his background, which can be difficult to do anyway because so many nobel laureates are at institutions from which they did not receive degrees (or conduct research at). The point is we’ve got another Nobel Laureate here at Stanford.</p>
<p>“Fire is an MIT grad, and Mello is a Harvard grad.”</p>
<p>1) FWIW, one was a Berkeley undergrad and the other was a Brown undergrad. I strongly suspect you know this, despite your failure to point it out. If you feel the need to keep engaging in a pi$$ing contest, one of them was born in Stanford hospital. So there.</p>
<p>2) BTW, Harvard faculty haven’t been doing well compared to “peer institutions” during the past 1-2 decades in the Nobel Prize department … although there are a few Harvard faculty who may be “due” soon. :)</p>
<p>3) FYI, many faculty whom Harvard claims as theirs who have won Nobel Prizes have either (a) left the university already, (b) are so old that they’ve stopped research/teaching long ago, or (c) did the bulk of their research elsewhere before being recruited to the Big-H as senior scientists. But I suspect you know this too…</p>
<p>Fact of the matter is that there’s great science being conducted throughout the country (and world) – at Stanford, Berekely, UCSD, MIT, Columbia, Princeton, and also Harvard.</p>
<p>Yes. Lets not leave out Harvard. I think they have been doing fairly well in the Nobel department and otherwise when it comes to recognition - both in the case of alumni and in the case of staff.</p>
<p>More National Academy members than any other college or university in America.</p>
<p>I am bored. Whenever I look into elite college boards, I always see Byerlys posts. If Harvard dropped early decision, why your schools do not follow Harvard? If your schools have accomplished anything, they are really nothing without Harvards involvements. If you are upset or offended, you know that Byerly means well. He bashes all schools.</p>
<p>Is the spam driving your crazy? Well, I have a fun solution. Lets me summarize his messages. You will feel better knowing that you are not the only victims in the CC. LOL</p>
<p>October 2, 2006
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<p>Byerly’s
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<p>It would be fun to compile this data and fact every day.</p>
<p>in additional nobel news, stanford prof roger d. kornberg was announced this morning as the 2006 recipient of the nobel prize in chemistry, “for his studies of the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription” (sounds more like bio than chem to me). amazingly, kornberg’s father also won the nobel, back in 1959. my congrats to the stanford community on its great week. it’s worth noting, however, that because both of its newest laureates operate out of the school of medicine, they probably don’t have much of a hand in its undergraduate education and research.</p>
<p>Psh, that is old news. I knew it hours ago!</p>
<p>The Nobel website incorrectly states “Stanford University” instead of “Stanford University School of Medicine” as it did for Fire. Maybe they’ll get around to fixing it.</p>
<p>on monday, the nobel site identified umass prof craig c. mello as a prof at <em>harvard</em>. so the foundation could probably benefit from a little better factchecking before going public.</p>