Our Scientists Break Down the Nobel Prizes
From autoimmune disorders and macroscopic quantum tunnelling to chemical constructions with unimaginable powers, these conversations unwrap some of the most cutting-edge scientific developments of today.
Every year, the Nobel Prizes introduce the world to three scientific developments that have been groundbreaking in some way. Some of these discoveries directly impacted our life (such as mRNA vaccines which saved innumerable lives during COVID-19), others changed our understanding of the universe (such as the discovery of the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy), and a few recognise technologies that promise to alter our futures (such as machine learning and genome editing).
Our University faculty believe that this complex science has to be made accessible to students and the general public because they may very well affect our lives in the future, if they don’t already.
Despite having their hands full at the University, our faculty manage to stay abreast of the latest developments in their field. Not only that, they believe that this complex science has to be made accessible to students and the general public because they may very well affect our lives in the future, if they don’t already.
This video series is an attempt by the scientists and science communicators on our campus to make this happen.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi “for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance.” Azim Premji University biologist Krishna Deepak sits down with science communicator Nandita Jayaraj to provide a short introduction to what this means and why this matters.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit”. Azim Premji University physicist Kripa Gowrishankar sits down with science communicator Nandita Jayaraj to provide a short introduction to what this means and why this matters.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and Omar M. Yaghi “for the development of metal-organic frameworks.” Azim Premji University chemist Sathish CG sits down with science communicator Nandita Jayaraj to provide a short introduction to what this means and why this matters.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks”. Azim Premji University computer scientist R Ramanujam sits down with science communicator Nandita Jayaraj to discuss what this means. What does it mean for a machine to ‘learn’, how did the laureates bring us out of the ‘AI winter’, and how exactly is any of this physics?
Watch here.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine was awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation”. Azim Premji University biologist Sravanti Uppaluri sits down with science communicator Nandita Jayaraj to discuss what this means. What is microRNA, what is the impact of its discovery and what exactly is so special about the serial Nobel Prize-winning C.elegans worm?
Watch here.
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to David Baker “for computational protein design” as well as Demis Hassabis and John Jumper for “protein structure prediction”. Azim Premji University faculty Aahana Ganguly sits down with science communicator Nandita Jayaraj to discuss what this means. Why do protein structures matter and what were the breakthroughs these laureates achieved?
Watch here.
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier “for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter”. Azim Premji University physics faculty member Proteep Mallik tells us what an attosecond is and what this means for our understanding of the universe.
Watch here.
Banner image — credit: Clément Morin