What it’s like to wait for the call from the Nobel Prize committee
Geneticist Mary-Claire King discusses her career and the experience of being a perennial Nobel Prize contender. She reflects on her groundbreaking discovery of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations and their impact on cancer prevention.
Why it matters
King's work fundamentally changed cancer screening and treatment, saving countless lives through actionable genetic knowledge.
Mary-Claire King of the University of Washington stands with President Obama after receiving the National Medal of Science at the White House in 2016. Drew Angerer/Getty Images By Annalisa Merelli
Annalisa (Nalis) Merelli is focused on boys’ and men’s health: She looks into reproductive health, trending treatments, screening approaches, mental health, and everything in between.
Some 20 years ago, Mary-Claire King was asked to hold a seminar at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
The invite, the geneticist soon learned, was code for: You are being considered for a Nobel Prize. She traveled to Sweden, held the seminar, then spoke about her work with interested experts who she later understood to be the prize committee.
She couldn’t have been too surprised: Her work has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, and changed cancer therapy.
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