The 2018 Nobel Prizes featured recognition of some pivotal accomplishments in laser technology, along with awards to pioneers of a new branch of cancer therapeutics and of directed-evolution biochemistry. Here's some of OPN’s and OSA’s coverage of the prizes this year.
Physics
Laser Achievements Capture 2018 Nobel Physics Prize [OPN]
OSA Honorary Member Arthur Ashkin and OSA Fellows Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland snag prize for contributions that set up decades of subsequent advances. [2 October 2018]
Physics
Donna Strickland Talks About What Made Her Want to Study Optics [OSA]
In a short video from September 2016, the 2018 Nobel Laureate reflects on how a trip to the science center with her dad at age five helped shape her career in optics. [2 October 2018]
Physiology/Medicine
Cancer Immunotherapy: The Optogenetics Angle [OPN]
Ongoing research in “optoimmunoengineering” may help to extend the impact of Nobel Prize–winning work. [1 October 2018]
Chemistry
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018 [NobelPrize.org site]
Frances H. Arnold, George P. Smith and Sir Gregory P. Winter took the 2018 chemistry prize for fascinating work in “directed evolution” that is spurring new approaches to drug development, green chemistry and more. [Read more at the Nobel Prize site]