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A legacy of excellence
From Heineken to Nobel—a direct route?
THE WORLD OF HEINEKEN
Dr. Thomas Cech, winner of the 1988 prize, won the Nobel Prize for
chemistry in 1989; and in 2001, Sir Paul Nurse was awarded the Nobel
Prize in physiology or medicine after winning the Heineken Prize in 1996.
Both de Duve and award-founder Heineken shared a vision of what such
prizes might mean to the greater society. Speaking in 2000 at a meeting of
Nobel Prize winners in Germany, de Duve commented on the role of the
Nobel Prize and other distinguished awards: "For the relationship with the
scientific community and the outside world, I think the Nobel Prizes have
been tremendous because they have caught the collective imagination of
the world, so that the respect of the Nobel Prize winners becomes
translated in the general community into some kind of respect for science."
De Duve's comments must have pleased Heineken. He admired science
and its practitioners, but from an early age felt that they were not given
the appreciation they deserved. This led him to create the Dr. H.P.
Heineken Prize for biochemistry and biophysics in 1964, named for his
father, Dr. Henry Pierre Heineken, who was a chemist.
Alfred Heineken said, before his death in 2002, "I want the prizes to act as
a stimulus to researchers, as well as a reward for past accomplishments."
Dr. Paul C. Lauterbur, the inventor of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
was the first Heineken Prize winner in medicine (1989) to go on to win a
Nobel Prize, also in medicine, in 2003. He was followed by the two most
recent Heineken/Nobel recipients, both of whom also won in the discipline
of medicine.
One of those winners, Dr. Eric Kandel, pioneered research in the
molecular mechanisms underlying learning processes and memory.
Autumn 2000 was a busy season for him. In September, he was awarded
the A.H. Heineken Prize for medicine.
"The Heineken Prize is a wonderful award. I felt very honoured to
receive it. My children and grandchildren came with me [to accept the
award]," Kandel recently recalled, "it provided a perfect prelude to the
Nobel ceremony." Just two weeks after receiving his Heineken Prize at the
Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, Kandel received the news of his Nobel
Prize in medicine.
Not all trips between Heineken and Nobel are as short as Kandel's. On
average, the seven dual winners have taken three years to make the trip.
And, of course, winning a Heineken Prize is no guarantee that a Nobel Prize
will follow. There is, however, a relationship.
"Both prizes fish in the same pond. The same names come forward for
both prizes, so the Heineken Prizes can be seen as a forerunner or
indicator of the Nobel Prizes," says Madeion de Ruiter, project officer for
the Heineken Prizes 2006 at the Communications Department of the Royal
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Academy selects the
winners of the scientific Heineken Prizes on the basis of nominations
received from other scientists or from learned institutions throughout the
world. Nominees for any of the Heineken science prizes are typically active
researchers who "are expected to continue their research activities for at
least ten years" and whose achievements in their field are "outstanding and
a source of inspiration to others."
Dr. Barry Marshall is the latest Nobel Prize winner to come from
Heineken stock. He won the Heineken Prize for medicine in 1998 and in
October of this year he was tapped for the Nobel Prize in physiology or
medicine for 2005 (jointly with Dr. J. Robin Warren). The two Australians
discovered the bacterium Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and
peptic ulcer disease.
Marshall commented on the selection process, and the supposition that
one prize leads to another: "It must be a very heavy responsibility for the
Nobel selection committee to choose a winner amongst so many worthy
candidates. However, some of their work is assisted, I believe, by the
earlier reviews in other prestigious academies. The Heineken selection
committee at the Academy goes to great lengths to select the winners so
the prizes are well respected by other academies."
What can be said for the Heineken selection process can be repeated
about other major prizes, of course. The International Congress of
Helicobacter pylori and its role in gastritis and peptic uicer diseas
was discovered by Heineken Prize winner Dr. Barry Marshall
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