The original text of this article is divided into two articles "More True: The Nobel Prize Is Wrong? Was Liszt just a postdoc when he did the award-winning work? and "The Nobel Prize First Appears Aunt-Nephew Combination", two articles mainly explain the identity of this year's Nobel Prize winner Benjamin Liszt when he worked on the Nobel Prize — he was already an independent PI at the time — and an interesting fact: Liszt's aunt also won the Nobel Prize, and for the first time in many Nobel Prize relatives. "Return to Simplicity" was published as a single article with the author's permission.
Written by | Ni Yi
On the afternoon of October 6, Beijing time, the 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was announced. The winners were Benjamin List of the Max Planck Coal Institute in Germany and David W.C. MacMillan of Princeton University in the United States for their contributions to "asymmetric organic catalysis." The awards of these two were somewhat unexpected, and even MacMillan himself did not believe it at first, thinking it was a prank. When List texted him, he replied, "Bet a thousand bucks, it's fake."
When the news of the award was received, List was on holiday with his wife in the Netherlands. He sent a selfie to the Nobel Prize Foundation from a restaurant. (Source: Nobel Prize official Twitter)
The media was also a bit ill-prepared for this and rushed into battle. In many reports, when mentioning List's award-winning work, it is said that he did it when he was a postdoc at the Scripps Institute in the United States, and the postdoctoral supervisor was Carlos F. Barbas III. More public opinion used this as an excuse to say that the Nobel Prize was issued wrongly: since List is only a postdoc, according to academic practice, the biggest honor of this work should belong to his supervisor Barbas, who died in 2014, so List picked up a leak. In this way, the list's contribution is insufficient compared to other people who contribute to "asymmetric organic catalysis", so is it not the Nobel Prize that is wrong?
Is this really the case?
Let's start with the conclusion:
First, when List was a postdoc at the Scripps Institute, his supervisor was not Barbas, but Richard Lerner, the second author of the award-winning work.
Second, when List made the award-winning work, his identity was no longer a postdoctoral fellow, but an assistant professor, an independent PI.
Third, List is the most significant contributor to his award-winning work, and his Nobel Prize qualification is at least comparable to macMillan.
The picture above is a passage from the official Nobel Prize report mentioning the groundbreaking work of the two laureates. In the figure below is index information for the two papers involved. Both papers were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 2000. List's winning paper, Proline-Catalyzed Direct Asymmetric Aldol Reactions, was written by The three authors, in turn, List, Lerner, and Barbas. MacMillan's winning paper, "New Strategies for Organic Catalysis: The First Highly Enantioselective Organocatalytic Diels−Alder Reaction," was written by Three authors, in order Ahrendt, Borths, and MacMillan.
In many experimental disciplines, the convention for author ranking is that the first author is the most important person to complete a specific experiment, usually a postdoc or graduate student; the corresponding author is a supervisor, ranking last; and the remaining authors are sorted by the size of their contribution. The reason why many people think that List is Barbas's postdoc is based on this ranking convention.
However, if you open the paper and look at the list of authors in it, you will find problems. The image above is a screenshot at the beginning of the paper, with an asterisk after the list's name to indicate that he is the corresponding author and the person who bears the greatest responsibility for the paper. List is the first author and corresponding author! What's going on here?
The most reliable resource for learning about a scholar's experience is his or her resume on the website of his or her institution. A screenshot of List's resume on The Max Planck website is as follows:
It's very clear that he was a postdoc at Scripps from 1997 to 1998 and an assistant professor at Scripps from 1999 to 2003. As can be seen in the screenshot of the previous paper, the submission date of the paper is December 7, 1999, indicating that at the time of submission, the List has been independent for nearly a year, and the award work has been completed as an independent PI. Of course, it is not excluded that he has been doing award-winning work since his postdoctoral period, but if that is the case, his postdoctoral supervisor must at least be a co-corresponding author, which does not meet the signification of the paper. (There are reports that List came up with the idea of awarding work during his postdoctoral work, which of course exists, but has nothing to do with the question of Nobel Prize attribution.) ）
After the List won the award, there was a report on Max Planck's website about him, "A Perspective for Life", which was available on the website
https://www.mpg.de/17662734/potrait-benjamin-list
This article contains more information about List's biography. There is no mention of Barbas in the report, but there is a mention of Lerner twice, screenshot below:
The first mention of Lerner was to say that List read about Lerner's work and thought it was very exciting, that's what he wanted to do! There is a paragraph in the middle that says that List got funding from the Humboldt Fund, came to Scripps, published 17 papers in less than two years, etc., and no longer screenshots. The second mention of Lerner was after a year later, when Lerner gave List a Scripps assistant professorship. In early 1999, List embarked on an expedition to his own scientific field with two staff members.
From this report, it is not difficult to judge that List's postdoctoral supervisor in Scripps is Lerner, but List has been an independent PI since the beginning of 1999. The report can also explain why List is the first author, because he was only a new PI at the time, there were only two people under him, most of them were still in charge of logistics, and they could only do experiments himself.
Of course, List's resume and Max Planck's report are List's one-sided statements. If the psychology is a little darker, it can be assumed that List lied about his own experience, because it is related to whether he can win the Nobel Prize. But coupled with the circumstantial evidence of the way his winning paper was signed, it can be definitively assumed that List completed the award as an independent PI.
As the first author and corresponding author of the award-winning paper, List is undoubtedly the most significant contributor to the paper. His winning paper was submitted on December 7, 1999 and published online on February 26, 2000. Another winner, MacMillan, was the corresponding author for the paper submitted on January 7, 2000 and published online on April 15, 2000. Comparing the submission/publication time, it can be considered that both parties are independent, and both complete the work as independent PI, and the qualifications for the award are equal.
To be fair, it doesn't matter in itself whether List is a postdoc or not when it comes to awarding work. Getting it wrong in a hurry of time is also a common human feeling, not a big problem. Most readers probably won't notice this at all. But if we want to use this as a basis to question the credibility of the Nobel Prize, we should still make a more rigorous examination.
Of course, questioning whether The List and MacMillan's work is worth giving out at this time, or whether other scholars should be added as the third winner, is another topic. We have no intention or ability to discuss this.
Final impression: Due to the language barrier, the exchange of information between the Chinese network and the English network is not smooth. Chinese the quality of information about foreign countries on the Internet is very low, and the quality of information about China on the English network is not high. In order to obtain comprehensive information and avoid being biased by middlemen, it is essential to read the original text directly. Learning English well is very important! (English training ads should be available here)
Nobel first appeared in the aunt-nephew combination
Previous article "More true: The Nobel Prize was sent wrong? Was Liszt just a postdoc when he did the award-winning work? After the publication, I saw a report by Science and Technology Daily entitled "The Open Life of Nobel Prize Winner Liszt", written by Li Shan, a reporter of Science and Technology Daily in Germany. This report is basically compiled from the article "A Perspective for Life" on the Website of Max Planck, which was quoted in the "More Truthful" article, and interested readers can click "Read the original article" at the bottom to read this Chinese report.
By the way, some interesting facts that are not mentioned in the article "More Truthful":
Liszt's aunt, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, was a developmental biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1995. The Science and Technology Daily report also talked about this matter. One of her winners was Princeton University professor Eric Wieschaus, whom many members of the Prine Tigers were well acquainted with.
Nüsslein-Volhard and Wieschaus were young in the same lab, where several Princeton professors came from
In the history of the Nobel Prize, there have often been cases where there has been more than one Nobel Laureate in the same family. The most famous is the Curie family, who won five Nobel Prizes for their daughter and son-in-law, and a son-in-law who received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of UNICEF. In addition, the two members of the family have won the Nobel Prize, including father and son, husband and wife, brothers, uncles and nephews, brothers-in-law, uncles and nephews, and the aunt-nephew combination of the Liszt family is still the first time, which can be described as a good story.
MacMillan, a Professor at Princeton University who won the Nobel Prize with Liszt, will hold a group meeting at 9 a.m. on the day of the award. The student who gave the report began by saying, "On this special day, we would like to congratulate a great scientist! Then put a slide with the words "Congratulations... Ben List !!!" co-author congratulations to Liszt... Look at the relationship between teachers and students and peers!
MacMillan Group Congratulates List for Winning丨 Image Source: MacMillan Group Twitter
Richard Lerner, Liszt's postdoctoral mentor at Scripps, is not unknown. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (yes, the institution that awarded the Nobel Prize in Science), and was awarded the Wolf Prize in Chemistry in 1994. From 1991 to 2011, he served as President of the Scripps Institute. He is also the founding director of the Institute of Immunochemistry at ShanghaiTech University, and is currently a distinguished professor and principal researcher, and he should be familiar to the Chinese chemical community.
Richard Lerner 丨 Image source: Scripps Research
After the article "More True" was published, I received feedback from readers that Liszt could not be regarded as truly independent since he was still working with his former mentor. Of course, there is some truth to this statement. But the expression we use in our original text is that Liszt "completed the award-winning work as an independent PI". No matter how much you feel that he is not independent, his independent identity cannot be denied. There is an old Chinese saying that "if the name is not correct, the speech is not smooth." Liszt occupied an independent position. It cannot be said that because he is cooperating with the former mentor, he will always give the honor to the former mentor, so does the young man still have a chance to come forward? Could it be that in order to show his independent identity, Liszt had to leave the already familiar platform, completely isolate himself from his former mentor, and have the idea of winning the Nobel Prize? Liszt's independent PI status was obviously recognized by the Nobel Prize Committee, so the prize was awarded to him, not the surviving Lerner.
As for how independent Liszt really is, it is certainly difficult for outsiders to judge. Here's just one small thing: After Dr. Liszt graduated, without consulting anyone, including his supervisors, he decided to follow Lerner at the Scripps Institute. Such a person, do you think he will follow the former postdoctoral supervisor step by step after becoming an independent PI? It is also such an uninhibited soul that can develop the whimsical ideas that have never been sent before, and produce the ideas that will make him win the Nobel Prize.
Liszt in the laboratory upside down 丨 Image source: mpg.de
At that time, Liszt was just a new PI who had been independent for less than a year, and made a result that could win the Nobel Prize. His collaborators are two senior professors in the institute, one of whom is not only his former mentor, but also the president of the institute, a superhero of academia who has the ability to influence the Nobel Prize selection. These two people did not rob him of his honor? Generously made him a corresponding author? In circles that turn a blind eye to some unspoken rules, this is indeed incomprehensible.
This article is reprinted with permission from the WeChat public account "Pulin Little Tiger Team".