Bangladeshi at Lindau: Participant's Blog

The Spirit of Lindau from Nature Video

2010-10-20T05:24:00.001+06:00

Inspirational stories from 2010 Lindau meeting of Nobel laureates

The annual Lindau meeting of young scholars with Nobel laureates concluded its 60th edition in 2010. To celebrate this milestone, Nature has come out with a supplement.
Nature Outlook in a supplement Science masterclass comes up with with stories that arouse curiosity. There are ten question and answer (Q&A) sessions put here. The questions were posed to Nobel laureates were selected through an online voting process.
Arno Penzias, Physics, 1978, in runaway success advises youngsters to 'ask questions' particularly, those that illuminate, and not those that destroy. Gerardus 't Hooft, Physics, 1999, says that one should not fear from making mistakes, rather, one should make it a honour to be the first one to fine out ones mistake, but even if someone else does it, they must be happy for having asked the right kind of questions.
Peter Agre, Chemistry, 2003, the family naturalist, adds that a young scientist should not work towards prizes, but rather pursue towards making discoveries, earning the respect of peers and training next generation of scientists. Christian de Duve, Medicine, 1974, in joy of discovery, highlighted to youngsters the need to excel intellectually and technically, as the endeavour in science has to be 'unashamedly elitist'.
In conducting your research, observe total rigour and intellectual honesty in the analysis of facts, consider all possible hypotheses, plan your approach to test those hypotheses, and submit your conclusions to the verdict of observation and experimentation without preconceived ideas. Never conduct research with the aim of proving a theory, but, rather, to invalidate it if it should be wrong. The best proof is failure to disprove.
Oliver Smithies, Medicine, 2007, response to the question on convincing public about relevance of fundamental research with no applications in sight refers to the Hubble telescope and its image revealing the universe that satisfies 'curiosity' which is a basic part of human nature that builds science brick by brick.
In politics and prophecy, John Mather, Physics, 2006, adds that the public should feel inspired from the many stories of fundamental research leading to world-changing applications. Co-recipient, George Smoot's, thought in aeons points out the relevance of interdisciplinary research but there is a need to understand the differences - the complex biological systems with a difficulty in measurement and observation call for high level and rough understanding whereas physicists are trained for rigour and precision.
The relevance of interdisciplinary research was also highlighted by David Gross, Physics, 2004 in the frontier physicist and Paul Crutzen, Chemistry, 1995. The latter was trained in civil engineering who moved to computer programming to work on meteorological models that got him hooked to atmospheric chemistry. He is the one who coined the term 'Anthropocene man', that is a nuclear war will lead to 'nuclear winter' with more people dying from starvation and diseases than the bomb. Harold Kroto, Chemistry, 1996, working in the coal face, argues a case to delink science funding from peer-review because of the difficulty to foresee important breakthrough.
The annual Lindau meeting which started in post-war Germany to revive science, health and economy has now become a global meeting that fosters the culture of science and with the coming of the digital age the way we do science.

In turning the tables, where the expert panel comprises of young scholars and the audience are selected laureates, the lessons learned for young scholars are:

choose a supervisor who does not travel too much,
don't try to please your supervisor all the time, be prepared to challenge them,
put questions to your supervisor, but think of some possible suggestions beforehand,
assume your supervisor is wrong and develop your own way to approach the problem,
idealism regarding science in politics is good, but be aware that it will be a steep challenge, and
don't give up too easily.

And that for laureates, rather for mentors are:
reply to emails from students within twelve hours,
don't dictate a student's life,
give creative freedom,
foster relationship among students in the lab, not just with them,
let students develop their 'voice' when writing papers, and
communicate your science to the public by using the media.

The supplement also has links to some collection from past issues to help the young scholars in their career, on alternative paths and how to prepare. Equally inspiring is the collection from the archives that include inspiration from the life of Dorothy Hodgkin, a female Nobel laureate, and how to make mentoring and networking work.
A small disappointment about this coverage is that it has excluded the interactions and discussions with the laureates of Literature, Peace and Economics. On a personal note, this is somewhat made up by the guide for mentors.

Source:
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299076#ixzz12ql0pIq6

লিন্ডাও সম্মেলনে অংশগ্রহণের আবেদন...............

2010-10-10T09:51:00.000+06:00

জার্মানির লিন্ডাও শহরে প্রতিবছর বসে নোবেল বিজয়ীদের মেলা। একেকবার এককটি বিষয়কে প্রাধান্য দেওয়া হয়। ১৯৫১ সাল থেকে লিন্ডাও শহরে এ সম্মেলন অনুষ্ঠিত হচ্ছে। নোবেল বিজয়ীদের সে সম্মেলনে সারা পৃথিবী থেকে বাছাই করা পাঁচ শতাধিক তরুণ বিজ্ঞানীও যোগ দেন। ২০০৭ সাল থেকে সেখানে অংশ নিচ্ছে বাংলাদেশের শিক্ষার্থীরা। এবারও আমাদের প্রতিনিধিত্ব করার সুযোগ থাকছে। এবারের সম্মেলনের প্রতিপাদ্য ‘চিকিৎসা ও জীববিজ্ঞান’।

লিন্ডাওয়ের নিয়মানুসারে বাংলাদেশের প্রতিনিধিদের প্রাথমিকভাবে নির্বাচন করবেন অধ্যাপক মুহম্মদ জাফর ইকবালের নেতৃত্বে একটি একাডেমিক কমিটি। দেশে নির্বাচিতদের তালিকা পাঠানো হবে জার্মানিতে লিন্ডাও ফাউন্ডেশনে। সেখান থেকে হবে চূড়ান্ত নির্বাচন, যা জানা যাবে আগামী ফেব্রুয়ারিতে। সম্মেলনে যোগ দেওয়ার জন্য ৩০ বছরের কম বয়সী শিক্ষার্থী ও গবেষকদের মনোনয়ন দেওয়া হবে। ৩০ অক্টোবর পর্যন্ত আবেদন করা যাবে ইন্টারনেটে। সম্পর্কিত বিষয়ের গবেষক, শিক্ষার্থীরা আবেদন করতে পারবেন। এ ছাড়া ফেসবুকে লিন্ডাও বাংলাদেশ গ্রুপে এবং লিন্ডাও বাংলাদেশের ব্লগে বিগত বছরগুলোর অংশগ্রহণকারীদের সঙ্গে যোগাযোগ করা যাবে। অনলাইনে আবেদনের ঠিকানা
www.lindau-bangladesh.org

Prothom-alo:লিন্ডাও সম্মেলনে অংশগ্রহণের আবেদন
http://www.prothom-alo.com/detail/date/2010-10-10/news/100082

নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের সান্নিধ্যে

2010-07-10T00:56:00.007+06:00

২০০৭ সাল থেকে জার্মানির লিন্ডাও শহরে নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের সান্নিধ্যে যাওয়ার সুযোগ পাচ্ছেন আমাদের তরুণ গবেষকেরা। ২০০৯ সালে রসায়নের সম্মেলনে উপস্থিত ছিলেন বাংলাদেশের তিন তরুণ গবেষক। তাদের অন্যতম কাজী মাহমুদা তাসনীম বিজ্ঞান প্রজন্মের পাঠকদের জন্য তুলে ধরেছেন তার দুর্লভ অভিজ্ঞতা।তারিখঃ ৩০-০৮-২০০৯

শুরুটা হয়েছিল কিছুটা দ্বিধা নিয়েই। মৌলিক রসায়ন নয়, প্রকৌশলের ছাত্রী আমি,তারপর ও জার্মানীর লিন্ডাও-এ রসায়নে নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের সম্মেলনে অংশগ্রহনের তীব্র আকাঙ্খা থেকেই আবেদন করে ফেললাম। প্রাথমিক মনোনয়নের ধাপ পার করতে পেরে আশার আলো দ্যুতি ছড়ালো হয়তো। অধীর অপেক্ষায় চূড়ান্ত মনোনয়নের দিন গুনছি। হঠাৎ মেইল পেলাম লিন্ডাও কাউন্সিলের। তাদের শেষ মুহুর্তের মনোনয়ন এ এবার বাংলাদেশ থেকে তরুণ গবেষক হিসেবে যাচ্ছি আমরা তিনজন। আমার সাথে আছে জাহাঙ্গীরনগর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের শিশির ঘোষ ও বাংলাদেশ কৃষি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের বিপ্লব কুমার সাহা।

স্বপ্ন এবার সত্যি হবার পথে! কিভাবে কি করবো বুঝে উঠতে পারছি না। এগিয়ে এলেন মুনির হাসান। তাঁর মাধ্যমেই যোগাযোগ হলো শিশির ও বিপ্লবের সাথে। আমরা তিনজনই একই শিক্ষাবর্ষের ছাত্র বলে বন্ধুত্ব হয়াটা কেবল সময়ের ব্যপার ছিল মাত্র। নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের খুব কাছে থেকে দেখার সুযোগ হতে যাচ্ছে – বিস্ময়ে অভিভূত এই আমাদের আলোচনায় তাই ঘুরে ফিরে সেই একই পরিকল্পনা। নর্থ আমেরিকান বাংলাদেশি ইসলামিক কমিঊনিটি ও বাংলাদেশ বিজ্ঞান একাডেমীর যৌথ অর্থায়নে নিশ্চিত হলো আমাদের বহু আকাঙ্খিত এই যাত্রা। বরাবরের মতো যুক্তরাষ্ট্রপ্রবাসী বাংলাদেশি বিজ্ঞানী আতাউল করিম দাড়াঁলেন আমাদের পাশে।

২৬শে জুন সকালে লিন্ডাও এর উদ্দেশ্যে যাত্রা করলাম। আমাদের সাথেই ছিলেন বাংলাদেশ বিজ্ঞান একাডেমীর ভাইস প্রেসিডেন্ট ড. মেসবাহ উদ্দিন আহমাদ এবং তাঁর স্ত্রী ড. ফরিদা আখতার। এদিকে উৎসাহ উদ্দীপনার সময় শেষ করে ঐ রাতেই পৌঁছলাম জার্মানির মিউনিখ শহরে। মিউনিখে বুয়েটের এক প্রাত্তন ছাত্র সুমিতের আতিথেয়তায় রাত কাটল। পরদিন বিকেলেই আমরা চলে গেলাম ছোট্ট সুন্দর নয়নাভিরাম শহর লিন্ডাও।

লিন্ডাও, ২৮শে জুন, দুপুর, পর্দা উঠলো বিজ্ঞানিদের এক মহা মিলনমেলার। ২৪ জন বিজ্ঞানিদের সাথে ৬৬ টি দেশ থেকে আসা ৫৮০ জন তরুন গবেষকদের এই সেতুবন্ধনের আয়োজনে আমরাও একই কাতারে দাঁড়িয়ে!

জলবায়ু পরিবর্তন, পরিবেশ দূষণ, নবায়নযোগ্য শক্তি- এই সব গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয়গুলোই এবারকার আয়োজনের মূল প্রতিপাদ্য ছিল। সীমাবদ্ধ প্রাকৃতিক সম্পদের উপযুক্ত ব্যবহারের মাধ্যমে পরিবেশবান্ধব উপায়ে কিভাবে প্রয়োজনীয় উৎপাদন সম্ভব- এই ব্যপারটিকেই খুব গুরুত্বের সাথে দেখেন বিজ্ঞানিরা। সম্মেলনের আয়োজনকে সাজানো হয়েছিল দুই ভাগে। নির্ধারিত চারদিনই দুপুর পর্যন্ত চলতো নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানিদের লেকচার আর বক্তৃতা। আর বিকেলে ছিল তাঁদের সাথে আগ্রহী তরুন গবেষকদের আলোচনার ব্যবস্থা।
বিজ্ঞানিদের গবেষণার কথা তো আমরা জানতে পারি বই পরে, কিন্তু একজন মানুষ হিষেবে তারা কেমন এই ব্যপারেই আমার আগ্রহ ছিল বেশি। এদিক বিবেচনায় আমার ঝোক তা বরাবরই ছিল সুইস বিজ্ঞানি ড. আর্নস্ট এর প্রতি, কারন তিনি কেবল একজন বিজ্ঞানিই নন, বরং একজন দার্শনিকও বটে। বক্তৃতা পর্বের প্রথমেই পেয়েও গেলাম তাঁকে। রসায়ন নিয়ে কাজ করেন বলেই কিনা, রসবোধের আধার নিয়ে আমাদের সামনে হাজির হলেন তিঁনি। Fourier transform NMR spectrometer নিয়ে কাজ করে ১৯৯১ সালে নোবেল জয় করলেও তার বক্তব্যে এই দাঁত ভাঙা শব্দের চর্চা হল কমই। তিঁনি বরং তাঁর জ্ঞ্যানগর্ভ জীবনবোধের আলোয় আলোকিত করলেন আমাদের ভিন্ন মাত্রায়। বললেন, “কখনোই একপেশে পুঁথিগতবিদ্যা স্বর্বস্ব হয়োনা, কাজ করো মনের তাগিদে”।

ওজোন স্তর ক্ষতির কারন খুঁজতে খুঁজতেই ১৯৯৫ সালে নোবেল পেয়ে যাওয়া তিন বিজ্ঞানী ড. ক্রুজেন, ড. রোনাল্ড এবং ড. মোলিনার লেকচারের অপেক্ষায় ছিলাম আমি। “রসায়ন অবশ্যই আমার পছন্দের বিষয়গুলোর মধ্যে একটি ছিল না”, শুরুতেই ক্রুজেন এর সরল স্বীকারোক্তি! কিন্তু, সিভিল ইঞ্জিনিয়ার হিসেবে চাকুরি শুরু করলেও গবেষণার প্রতি আসক্তি হয়ত তাঁর মজ্জাগত ছিলো। তাই পরবর্তীতে স্টকহোম ইউনিভার্সিটির আবহাওয়াবিদ্যা বিভাগে কম্পিউটার প্রোগ্রামার হিসেবে কর্মকালীন সময়েই তিনি মাস্টার্স, এমনকি পিএইচডি ও করে ফেললেন আবহাওয়াবিদ্যাতেই। আর এইভাবেই বায়ুমন্ডলীয় ওজোন এর আলোক-রসায়ন নিয়ে কাজ করতে করতেই নাইট্রাস আক্সাইড (N2O) কিভাবে ওজোনস্তরকে ধংস্ব করে তা ব্যখ্যা করে ফেললেন! ভূমির ব্যকটেরিয়াতে থাকা প্রাকৃতিক নাইট্রাস আক্সাইড বায়ুমন্ডলের স্ট্র্যাটোস্ফিয়ারে সৌর শক্তির উপস্থিতিতে ভেঙ্গে সক্রিয় দুটি যৌগ নাইট্রোজেন-ডাই-আক্সাইড (NO2) এবং নাইট্রিক আক্সাইড (NO) উৎপন্ন করে যা ওজোন (O3) কে ভেঙ্গে অক্সিজেন অনু(O2) তৈরী করে ফেলে। এই তথ্য বেরিয়ে আসে ক্রুজেন এর গবেষণায়। আর এরই মাধ্যমে একজন রসায়নে বীতস্রদ্ধ মানুষ রসায়নের সর্বোচ্চ পুরষ্কারে সম্মানিত হন! যুগ যুগ ধরে মানবজাতির নানবিধ কর্মকান্ডে কিভাবে পরিবেশ ক্ষতিগ্রস্ত হচ্ছে, জলবায়ু পরিবর্তন হচ্ছে, গ্রীন হাঊজ গ্যাস, এসিড বৃষ্টির ঘটনা বেড়ে যাচ্ছে- এই ব্যপার গুলোই তুলে ধরলেন ক্রুজেন তাঁর তথ্যনির্ভর বক্তব্যে। এরপর এলেন ড. রোলান্ড। কে জানতো আমেরিকার ওহাইওর আবহাওয়া ষ্টেশনে কাজ করা সামান্য এক স্বেচ্ছাসেবক একদিন পৃথিবী নামের গ্রহটাকে বাঁচাতে কিছু একটা করে ফেলবেন? আসল ঘটনা হলো, পোষ্ট ডক্তোরেট রিসার্চে তিঁনি আর ড. মোলিনা মিলিত ভাবে মাত্র তিন মাসের একটা গবেষনায় একটি থিউরী দাঁড় করিয়ে ফেললেন যা থেকে ধারণা করা যায় ক্লোরো-ফ্লোরো-কার্বন (CFC) ওজোন স্তর ধংসের একটি অন্যতম কারন! পরবর্তিতে তাদের এই তত্ব নানাভাবে সত্যি প্রমানিত হবার পর আন্তর্জাতিকভাবে CFC কে নিষিদ্ধ ঘোষনা করা হয়। তাঁদের এই আবিষ্কারের স্বীকৃতি মেলে ১৯৯৫ সালে নোবেল জয়ের মাধ্যমে। পরিবেশ বাঁচাতে ব্যক্তিগত সচেতনতাবোধ থেকেই ধাপে ধাপে স্বর্বজনীন সুফল সম্ভব। “মানুষকে ‘লাল বাতি’ মেনে চলতে অভ্যস্ত হতে হবে”, এমন মন্তব্য ড. মোলিনার। নীতি –নির্ধারক ও বৈজ্ঞানিক গোষ্ঠীর এক টেবিলে বসা টাকেও তিনি গুরুত্তপুর্ণ মনে করেন। সবসময়ই হাসিখুশি অমায়িক এই বিজ্ঞানির সাথে বিকেল বেলার আলোচনা পর্ব শেষে বেশকিছুক্ষণ কথা বলার সুযোগ পাই আমি। একমাত্র তাঁর সাথে একটা মিল খুঁজে পেয়েই যেন সন্তুষ্ট আমি - তাঁর মতো আমারও ব্যাচেলর ডিগ্রী কেমিকৌশল ইঞ্জিনিয়ারিং এ! বাংলাদেশের প্রাকৃতিক দূর্যোগ সহ নানা বিষয়ে তিনি কথা বললেন। দেখলাম, এ বিষয়ে আমার থেকে খুব কম জানেন না ড.মোলিনা!

জৈব-রসায়নের খুব বেশি কিছু আমার জানা না থাকলেও পরবর্তী দিন গুলোতে ড. মার্টিন, ড. শিমমুরা আর ড. রজার সেইন এর লেকচার এর পর গ্রীন ফ্লোরেসেন্ট প্রোটিন (GFP) এর ব্যপারটা কিছুটা হলেও বোধগম্য হলো আমার। এই জিএফপি নিয়ে গবেষণাই তাঁদেরকে ২০০৮ সালে নোবেল পাইয়ে দেয়! জিএফপি হলো জিনগতভাবে লিখিত মার্কার যার বর্ণ সবুজ, যা কিনা খুব সহজেই মানব দেহের জীবন্ত টিস্যু থেকে দৃষ্টিগ্রাহ্য। বায়ো-মেডিকেল গবেষণার পথ ধরেই GFP এখন মানব শরীরের টিউমারও সনাক্ত করতে পারছে! বিনয়ী মার্টিন তাঁর বক্তব্যের ফাঁকেই আমাদের জানিয়ে দিলেন তাঁর এই সাফল্যের সিংহভাগই নাকি তাঁর স্ত্রী এবং একই সাথে সহকর্মী ড. টুল্লে হ্যাজেলরিগ এর উপরই বর্তায় মহতি এই মানুষ গুলোর কাছে বিনয়ী হতে পারাটা একদম শেখার মতো। এদিকে ড.রজার সেইন তাঁর জিএফপি-সংক্রান্ত আকর্ষণীয় গল্প(!) শেষে তরুণ গবেষকদের জন্য কিছু উপদেশ দিতে ভুললেন না! উপদেশ গুলোর সারাংশটা এমন- “এমন কোনো কাজ খুঁজে নাও, যা তোমাকে কিছুটা হলেও মানসিক প্রশান্তিও দেবে”, “লেবু থেকে লেবুর শরবতই বানাতে চেষ্টা করো, অন্য কিছু নয়; অধ্যবসয় কখনও বিফলে যায় না”!

খুবই কৌতুকপ্রিয় মজার মানুষ স্যার ক্রোটো! তাঁর অসাধারণ বক্তৃতার পর তো তাঁর জনপ্রিয়তা তখন তুঙ্গে! এই রকম একজন বিজ্ঞানের সাধনায় ডুবে থাকা মানুষ কিভাবে সাধারণ্যে মিশে যেতে পারেন এটা ক্রোটোকে না দেখলে বোঝা যায় না! ফুলেরিন কার্বন যৌগ ( ৬০ অথবা তার চেয়েও বেশি সংখ্যক কার্বন পরমানু নিয়ে গঠিত যৌগ) আবিষ্কার তাঁকে ১৯৯৬ সালে নোবেল পাইয়ে দিলেও তিনি কেবল একজন নোবেল বিজয়ী হিসেবেই পরিচিত নন, শিক্ষা-বিজ্ঞান-প্রযুক্তিকে প্রসারিত করার জন্য নানারকম সামাজিক কর্মকান্ডেও তিনি সক্রিয়ভাবে জড়িত। “আমি একজন মুক্ত চিন্তার, রসিক, মানবতাবাদী মানুষ”-নিজেকে এইভাবেই প্রকাশ করেন ক্রোটো! “ আমি কখনো উত্তর খুঁজি না, বরং প্রশ্নটা বুঝতে চেষ্টা করি”, গবেষণার ব্যপারে তার নিজস্ব দৃষ্টিভঙ্গিটা এমনই। এই মজার মানুষটার সাথেও বেশ আন্তরিক আলাপচারিতার সৌভাগ্য হয় আমার। পরবর্তীতে আরও একবার তাঁর সাথে দেখা হলে নতুন করে পরিচয় দিতে হলো না, বরং তিনি নিজেই চিনে ফেললেন! আমি খুবই সম্মানিতবোধ করলাম! বাংলাদেশ নিয়ে তিনিও যে খুব ওয়াকিফহাল, তাঁর সাথে কথায় তা ঠিকই বোঝা গেলো!

কেবল নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের সাথেই নয় পরিচয় হয় নানা দেশ থেকে আশা তরুণ গবেষকদের সাথে। জানা হয় তাদের তাদের গবেষনার বিষয় বস্তু সম্পর্কেও। এর মাঝে একদিন হঠাৎ ইউরোপিয়ান ব্রডকাস্টিং ইউনিয়নের সাথে সংশ্লিষ্ট ইউরোভিশন নেটওয়ার্ক এর এক সাক্ষাতকার এ আমার ডাক পড়ে! পাঁচ দেশের পাঁচ জন নারী গবেষক নিয়ে “বিজ্ঞানে নারীর অগ্রগতি” বিষয়ক এক আলোচনায় ক্যামেরার সামনে দাড়ালাম আমি। ভিন্ন একটা অভিজ্ঞতা! যাহোক, এই দিকে সম্মেলন এর ফাঁকেই আমি, বিপ্লব আর শিশির ঘুরে নিলাম ‘কন্সট্যান্স লেক’ এর পাশে ছোট্ট সাজানো শহর লিন্ডাও।

খুব কাছে থেকে নাকি হাতি দেখলে ঠিক আন্দাজ করা যায় না। আমার অবস্থাও এর ব্যতিক্রম ছিল না। কেমন করে কেটে গেল ২৮ জুন থেকে ৩ জুলাই সম্মেলন এর দিনগুলো! বই এর পাতা আর ওয়েবপেজ এ যাদের দেখে, যাদের গবেষণার কথা জানতে পেরেই তৃপ্ত হতে হয়, তাদেরকেই খুব কাছে থেকে দেখা হয়ে গেল, কিছুটা জানাও হয়ে গেল হয়ত! বিজ্ঞান এর গবেষণার জগতে শীর্ষে থাকা এই মানুষগুলো ব্যক্তি হিসেবে কী অসাধারণভাবে সাধারণ, কী ঊদার আর বিনয়ী, আমার এই উপলব্ধিটাই আমার লিন্ডাও অভিজ্ঞতার সবচেয়ে বড় প্রাপ্তি।

Link: http://www.eprothomalo.com/index.php?opt=view&page=24&date=2009-08-30

Miscellaneous Moments: Lindau Meeting, 2009

2010-07-09T23:48:00.021+06:00

Lindau Meeting was full of happening I would like to share. Not only attending lectures of Nobel Laureates, but also discussion with them informally and warm interaction with young researchers are the essence of such rendezvous.

Professor Dr. Molina, giving his Lecture

Informal Discussion Session with Nobel Laureate

Personal Interaction with Nobel Laureate Dr. Martin Chalfie

I cannot but add this photo here! I look so attentive listening the lecture of Nobel Laureate!

We had a lively interaction with American young researchers at the evening American get together. We discussed the research philosophy with the context of our homeland.

Me and Biplob with two American young researchers

Another gathering was worth remembering, that is Indian Dinner. We, all the young researchers from India, Germany, Nepal, Rumania and Bangladesh at the dinner.

Young Researchers, utilizing the Dance Floor!

Nobel Laureates also No Less! Prof. Peter Agre, dancing with a female researcher!

We had a grand food there!

At the final day, we had a great trip of boat to Mainau Island. It was worth remembering indeed!Me, shishir and Biplob in the Boat

I had a very informal lively conversation with Sir Kroto in the Boat!

My last photo here! The beautiful evening Lindau at the side of Lake Constance!

Take Home Lessons!

2010-07-09T23:40:00.002+06:00

Lindau was supposed to be a meeting between generations whose explicit goal was the transfer of knowledge. But the meeting achieved an objective bigger than this; it also transferred dreams and inspiration to all who attended. I am a young researcher myself and I thought that there are many invaluable take-home messages to be learnt from the life and work of the scientists who participated in this wonderful gathering. Some modest thoughts:

1. Don't try to win a Nobel Prize!
I was going to say this last but thought I would note it at the beginning. This may come as a disappointment to many researchers dreaming and having the explicit goal of winning a Nobel. But such a thought would miss the point made by every single laureate that attended the meeting. I think I can safely say that every one of the laureates would tell us that he was never working toward a prize. Or rather that he was always working toward a prize; the prize was the deep satisfaction that comes from understanding the world, from the pleasure of finding things out, from helping humanity through the power of science. Scientists do science for the joy of discovery. A Nobel or any other prize can only be a happy but unintended side-effect of the work. The Nobel is undoubtedly a great honor and rewards the most creative and important work, but an aspiration to win the prize can only sidetrack us from the great and overriding goals of science that are beyond prizes, individuals and institutions. The Gist is, Don't covet prizes, covet the excitement of probing the frontiers of knowledge. After a hundred years that might be the only thing that counts.

2. Don't count on serendipity, but be prepared for it!
Peter Agre was working on isolating the Rh factor protein that is important in blood transfusion. When he also isolated a curious unidentified protein, he was intrigued and wise enough to investigate this side product. His curiosity led to the prizewinning discovery of aquaporins or water channels. When Herbert Brown was investigating the reaction of the compound diborane with certain organic halides, his assistant reacted several halides with diborane to investigate their reactions. Only one halide did not react as expected. Rather than discard the result as an outlier, Brown investigated the contaminant in the halide that was causing the strange result. His curiosity led him to discover the prizewinning hydroboration reaction of alkenes with diborane.

Serendipity is the retrospective name given to careful investigation of unexpected observations. Serendipity in science needs the highest standards of curiosity and perseverance. Echoing another cliched saying, a Nobel Prize winner is a scientist who sees what everything sees but thinks what nobody thinks. Don't discount the great role of serendipity in discovery, but be prepared to recognize it when it comes knocking at your door. Keep your eyes open and your mind even more so.

3. Work on big problems!
This might sound obvious, but it's not always recognized. The key point here is that most of science is hard and it's all too easy to spend a lot of time working on small problems, time that would promise more returns (and more risk!) when spent on big problems. At the same time it is important not to underestimate the importance of working out trivial details; it's the overarching goal that must be big. To work on big problems we have to do whatever is necessary; find the smartest and most accessible people in our field and try to work with them, constantly scour the literature and look for trends and keep on asking fundamental questions.

Sometimes working on big problems might overwhelm us because of their sheer complexity. Yet the history of the Nobel Prizes shows that such perseverance often pays off. All these prizewinners demonstrated the value of working on big problems, and they all recognized a big problem when they saw one. At the same time they were not sure they would succeed and their efforts were not contingent on a high probability of success. They worked on these problems primarily because of the intellectual challenge they posed, not only for the results they would yield.

At Lindau every Nobel Prize winner demonstrated that he worked on a big problem, whether it was visualization of gene expression (Tsien, Chalifie, Shimomura), investigating important organic reactions (Schrock, Grubbs), investigating the effects of reactive molecules on an important atmospheric component (Molina, Crutzen, Rowland) finding out the fate of proteins (Ciechanover, Hershko, Rose) or exploring fundamental methods for determining biological structure (Ernst, Wuthrich, Michel, Huber). The message from all these laureates was that one should work on fundamental problems with abandon, and let the rest take care of itself.

4. Collaborate!
Science is now an international endeavor. Many of the most pressing scientific problems that currently concern us are interdisciplinary in nature and it can be beyond the capability of a scientist from a single field to solve them. Biology is an especially salient example of the era of multidisciplinary research.

Roger Tsien started out by designing molecules that would exhibit fluorescence but he had to collaborate with molecular biologists to find out how they and the green fluorescent protein could be expressed and visualized in cells. Kurt Wuthrich and Richard Ernst developed pioneering NMR methods but they had to collaborate with protein chemists and molecular biologists who had to purify and obtain the proteins they needed to study. Collaboration not only involves amiable interaction with colleagues from a different field but it involves the ability to explain own problems clearly and patiently to them, and it certainly involves knowing the basics of colleagues' fields. Collaboration is exciting since it enables us to learn about a variety of fields and approaches while at the same time diversifying our own field.

Curiously collaboration needs some human skills that, a friendly demeanor and powers of persuasion. It seems that interdisciplinary scientific research teaches us not only about science but also about engaging with people. Most of the Lindau laureates demonstrated the value of such interaction.

5. Persevere!
This sounds even more obvious, and yet this is perhaps the single most important quality that has distinguished Nobel Prize winners from other smart people, or highly successful scientists from others. Both Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton claimed that the reason they were successful was not because they were unusually intelligent but because they stuck to problems for months and sometimes years. Once we are imbibed with the quest to solve a particular problem then perseverance should naturally follow.

6. Don't stop dreaming!
All the above qualities and traits are simply preludes to the most important one; don't give up on dreams. Science has always been made possible by people who pushed the frontiers of available knowledge, who constantly asked themselves "What if", who playfully sidestepped objections and opposition to pursue their favorite idea. That's really all the Lindau laureates were concerned with when they did their pioneering work. Let's just explore the wonderful ideas of scientific discovery; the rest should follow and we should rest assured.

In the end all we need to remember is something that someone said hundreds of years ago when he also alluded to the childhood fascination for science and nature. Let us be that little boy he was referring to, and then maybe we can aspire to be the grown man he became when he uttered these words: “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me“ by Isaac Newton!

Source: http://www.lindau-nobel.de/

Science is for all: Lively Female Participation

2010-07-09T23:20:00.008+06:00

Science is for all. I witnessed it in Lindau Meeting seeing lively large participation of female researchers. Scientific excellence is scarcely achievable without the potential of highly talented women. It is therefore particularly important to integrate leading female scientists of the future into networks of cutting-edge scientific research at an early stage. The Nobel Laureate Meetings offer a unique platform to this end. It is clearly evident in Lindau Meeting that indicates just how successful women are in the world of science.

Pakistani female young researchers at dinner

This year, 580 young researchers from 67 countries attended the meeting where female participation was 44%. Day by day, the increasing proportion of female participation in such meeting as young researcher shows a ray of hope of women’s foot stepping in the field of natural science and research activities.

Indian Women Researchers with their Traditional Dress!

Female researcher under veil, in the Lecture session

A different experience I gathered there. First time, I faced the Television interview. Five women researchers were called on an Interview on: Women in Science”.

We, five female researchers attended the TV interview of Eurovision from the European Broadcasting Union!

Climate Change and Sustainability debated: the Heat is ON

2010-07-09T23:16:00.002+06:00

Last day the attendees of the 59th Meeting of Nobel laureates piled onto a futuristic looking boat and travelled to the beautiful island of Mainau for a panel discussion about sustainability and climate change.

The panel line up was pretty impressive: Rajendra Pachauri and Thomas Stocker from the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), Nobel laureates Mario Molina and Richard Schrock, Cornelia Quennet-Thielen from the German Ministry of education and research, and author Bjorn Lomborg.

The discussion was on the beautiful island of Mainau, about two hours by boat from Lindau. The more than five hundred students, guests and journalists were sitting on chairs in the open air for more than two hours. The atmosphere was hot, humid and largely unpleasant. At the end of the discussion these qualities for the weather had translated into part of the tone of the argument.

The panel had come here specifically to spur their student audience into working towards fixing the global problems of climate change and sustainability – and whilst they all agreed something needed to be done (and fast), where young researchers should start looking for these solutions proved to be a far more difficult point to pin them down on.

Current approaches - such as solar panels, geoengineering and nuclear fission - were heavily criticized by various members of the panel. Causing one student attendee to stand up and ask for suggestions on what specific green technologies young researchers should be working on, the response? Silence, followed by question dodging. Pachauri did eventually suggest developing small turbines for use as biomass gasifiers and developing a route for turning agricultural cellulose waste into fuel at a local level.

Stocker focused on the actual physical effects of climate change including the melting of polar ice and the destruction of natural habitats. He also briefly discussed some of the measures that have been proposed for mitigating the problem but especially criticized geoengineering solutions, which he thinks would be unpredictable and expensive. But he is lukewarm towards geoengineering most of all because he thinks that it does not address the root cause and simply tries to make the problem disappear by pushing it under the rug.

Mario Molina has observed first hand the effects of human activities on climate at the most fundamental scientific level. He now spends part of his time at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, California and part in Mexico. Molina works with economists and politicians in Mexico and California and tries to have a very well rounded perspective of the problem. Molina is also the only person at the Lindau meeting who included new generations of nuclear reactors as an important part of the solution to the climate change problem. In both his statement in the panel discussion as well as his earlier talk, Molina stressed his concern about tipping points which could cause irreversible changes in climate. We must not forget that the period of relatively temperate climate that we have been enjoying for about ten thousand years is a rare event in the climate history of our planet, an interglacial period between ice ages or glaciations. Ice ages seem to be earth's favorite state of being. At least based on her history, there is no reason to believe that our earth's climate would be extraordinarily resilient to large changes. Molina is concerned that tipping points induced by anthropogenic global warming might easily consign the earth to one of these common states.

The opening statements of the panel discussion were followed by a few questions. A common question was about how we could encourage ordinary people to do their bit against global warming and change their personal habits. I have not yet received the answer to this question and I don't think any of the panelists had a good one. But everyone acknowledged that only by providing information about the serious consequences of climate change on a personal level could one make a difference.

The question and answer session also turned into a heated debate when panelist Lomborg clashed over most of the others regarding the proper dissemination of information. Most panelists and especially Molina and Pachauri stressed the constant need for making sure that people have all the relevant information. Global warming has unfortunately become such a highly politicized issue that most of the time the information that people get is biased. However Lomborg challenged this view and said that careful studies indicate that information people had in 2008 was comparable to that in 1988 and yet people have not changed.

After much back-and-forth between members of the panel, the audience was invited to ask questions, but disappointingly there was time for only a few from the young researchers. One of the highlights, however, was when recent (GFP) Nobel Laureate Tsien stood up from the first row of the audience and challenged the panelists to give specific examples of scientific and technological research that the assembled audience should consider working on, noting that some of the brightest young scientific minds in the world were present. There really weren't very many focused answers, but solar energy and nanotechnology were mentioned — the consensus was that work should be done in many different areas.

Is this what will happen? Only time will tell. Human history has repeatedly and remarkably demonstrated that truth and wisdom can be snatched from the jaws of defeat and despair by human dignity, rationality and common sense. There is every hope that this will be the case with the problem of climate change, and it is only that hope that will keep moving us onward.
In December, the UNs Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will take place in Copenhagen, where the world’s political leaders will meet and hopefully agree a global plan on who cuts what and when - in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. If these targets are agreed – and this is still a big if – the world’s scientific leaders will need to work out what technology is needed to reach them. And from that day’s discussion it became abundantly clear to me that this may prove to be an even bigger problem.

Source: http://www.scienceblogs.de/lindaunobel/

Panel Discussion on the Role and Future of Chemistry for Renewable Energy

2010-07-09T22:59:00.002+06:00

As well as the lectures, one of the morning sessions featured a panel discussion about the role and future of chemistry for renewable energy. Sitting on the panel were Nobel Laureates Ertl, Grubbs, Kohn, Kroto, Marcus, Molina and Rowland. The moderator made an opening address that outlined some of the challenges we face in this particular regard and then each Nobelist was invited to respond.

“Because chemistry is faced with challenges from the environment, climate, energy, medicine” said Gerhard Ertl, who got the Nobel in 2007, for investigating the individual steps involved in the synthesis of ammonia in detail, at the atomic level. Working in the area of catalysis, his big dream is to finally have hydrogen driven economy, where hydrogen is derived from breaking down water (H2O).

In a nutshell: of all the gases that are causing havoc in the atmosphere, five most important ones are: carbon dioxide, which lives in the atmosphere for more than a century; Nitrous oxide, which has a lifetime of about 120 years; methane which lives in the atmosphere for only about 8 to 9 years; and then there are chlorofluorocarbons, ozone, etc.

Ertl of course stressed on the fact that since energy cannot be created (it’s constant); it needs to be transformed from one form to the other for which science has to work with doubled-trebled effort towards converting solar into thermal or photovoltaic energy.

Robert Grubbs (2005) thinks new materials hold the key as they’d provide new storage medium that last longer and are safer.

Walter Kohn (1998), a great proponent of solar and wind energy, believes mankind needs to move from being a fossil fuel civilization to a ‘solar civilization’.

Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, who together won the Nobel in 1995 for studying atmospheric chemistry and showing the world the ozone depletion which eventually led to the Montreal Protocol goading the world to curb CFCs from the atmosphere, are still at it, convincing the world that the atmospheric heating in last the 150 years far supersedes the heating combined in the last 450,000 years. Molina’s worry is: “While making and selling cars are good for the economy, the challenge now is to convince people not to use it.”

Rowland was lamenting the fact that he had to say something original after following six other Nobel Laureates! But he did. For Rowland, thinking of new ways of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is a feasible route for chemists. “I already see some proposals but most of it I don’t believe in.”

Well, his skepticism is not alone. Sir Harold Kroto worries that the world is far more tuning into strategic research, clearly moving away from the ‘blue sky’ research which is so very important for discoveries. “Historically, most major discoveries have come from unexpected areas.” He however thinks if we could follow nature and figure out how trees convert water into hydrogen and oxygen we’d crack all energy problems, but “trees are not stupid” and have evaded humans from copying their technique, so to say!

Panel discussion on the Role of Chemistry in Renewable Energy

So, the discussion went all over — from fusion science, which has taken 35 years and will probably take another 75 to solve the energy problem; molecular machines akin to the nano devices that our body uses to convert energy; smart materials that can directly convert solar energy into electricity; rechargeable batteries that would store sufficient energy for a substantially long period and so on.

What was most striking was that at an age and after a stage (winning Nobel), many in other professions would hang their armour but not these scientists. If the zeal is strong, the concern is even bigger that they should do more for the society. “We should do more…make people understand that we, scientists, are decent people. When it comes to information transfer to society, we can still do better”, said Kroto.
After some questions from the young researchers, much discussion ensued about the best way to tackle our energy problems.

Sir Harry Kroto: the Bucky Ball Fame

2010-07-09T22:07:00.005+06:00

Next Sir Harry Kroto (Bucky ball fame) took to the stage - if someone has never seen him talk he really should! Sir Harry Kroto won the Nobel Prize for discovering the soccer-ball-shaped fullerenes, strangely-structured carbon molecules also known as bucky balls. These molecules led to the development of carbon nanotubes and the burgeoning field of nanoscience. My favorite quote of his was – ‘if no-one finds a use for C60 soon, I’ll have to give my Nobel Prize back’.

One of the star speakers at the 59th Lindau Nobel meetings, Kroto had the audience in raptures while talking about ‘Science, Society and Sustainability’. In dozens of slides full of pictures, data, graphics and animation, in which his exposition of chemistry took just about 45 or 60 seconds, his talk epitomized how science has to be made attractive to be appealing to lure young students.

Describing his early days, when the first award of his life came from designing a book jacket, rather than science, Kroto entertained some 600 people in the audience, convincing them that merely doing Nobel-class science is not enough. “Remember humanity and forget the rest.” He began by recounting the influences that ultimately made him become a scientist, and briefly compared his career path with that of the actor Sir Ian McKellen, who attended the same school at the same time as him. After touching on some scientific themes such as chemistry and nanotechnology, and admitting that microwave spectroscopy was the only subject he really fully understood, he moved on to discuss broader societal aspects of science. In particular, the relationship between religion and science came under sharp focus. Towards the end of his talk, the theme of sustainability — a common one at the meeting — was discussed, with Kroto suggesting that “we really can't sustain our consumption of energy unless we work out a way to split water efficiently.”
“They promised payback in this lifetime”, said Kroto, with a pun on the way humans are destroying the planet with blatant disregard for future generations.

Above picture of Harry Kroto with a bucky ball made out of balloons on his head, simply make one understand why (despite causing some religious controversy) he was one of the biggest hits!

He has a bunch of education initiatives going on and he intends to link all the teachers in the world in the next 4-5 years. Ambitious; but he is using his Nobel and Knight status the hilt. He spends a lot of his time spreading the good word of science - through workshops, lectures and the like, and is quite the show man.

I was most touched by Dr. Kroto's thought provoking lecture. Not only did the great talk encompass ease of understanding but it also embodied insights on how he came to his discoveries as well as how he is using his position to help better society. He reminded me that we as scientist need to bridge the gap with non-scientists as well as prepare and encourage our youth that science is important and it are nothing to be afraid of.

His fame was better understood seeing the jam-packed audiences during the discussion session. This informal discussion with the laureates increased my knowledge in the fields of physics and chemistry. I learned that lines between the fields of chemistry, physics, and medicine/physiology are slowly intertwining and overlapping with each other. The scientific community as whole has gained from the meshing of the disciplines.

Sir Kroto, this chemistry celeb exploited his stardom while giving pose with young researchers!

At the end of this informal discussion (Chatting, I better say!), I introduced myself to this “Chemistry Celeb”, and had the most cordial conversation including serious issues of Bangladesh. Once again, I found the Nobel Laureate “clued-up” of my country Bangladesh! I am honored!

Rowland, Crutzen & Molina: Climate Change is real and they can save us!

2010-07-09T21:48:00.002+06:00

It is possible that a perceptive science teacher in Ohio of the 1940’s may have helped save the planet. For that teacher allowed a bright, responsible pupil to look after the local volunteer weather station. And that pupil was Sherwood Rowland, who grew up to be the scientist who realized that chlorofluorocarbons contribute to ozone depletion.

“Chemistry definitely was not one of my favorite subjects”, Paul Crutzen admitted! But, his destiny says something different. Though, started his career as a civil engineer, longing for an academic career, Crutzen gained a job as a computer programmer at Stockholm University’s Department of Meteorology. He used his spare time to gain the equivalent of a Master’s in mathematics, mathematical statistics, and meteorology and a PhD in meteorology. While much of the work at Stockholm was aimed at acid rain, Crutzen says he was given free rein, and much help, in his ozone studies. He discovered that nitrous oxide (N2O), produced naturally by soil bacteria, rises into the stratosphere, where solar energy splits it into two reactive compounds, NO and NO2. These remain active for some time, breaking ozone (O3) down into molecular oxygen (O2). This is his research made him to get a phone call from Stockholm! This is the tale of how a chemistry phobic turned to a Nobelist in chemistry!!!

Next, Mario Molina is no less! During the post-doctoral research he went to work with F.S. Rowland at the University of California, Irvine, where he found a new challenge in investigating the behavior of certain industrial compounds – chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs - in the atmosphere and, beyond that, in the environment as a whole. It took just three months for Rowland and Molina to develop a theory predicting that these compounds would cause depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer, a theory that was subsequently shown to be correct and which led to an international agreement banning the use of the industrial compounds causing the damage.

Thus in this Lindau meeting we have all three of the Nobel laureates who were recognized for their work on the chemistry of chlorofluorocarbons in the stratosphere which is responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer. Their work, which met with considerable corporate and political opposition, delineated the role of chlorofluorocarbons in causing the destruction of the ozone layer. The work led the way to further studies of human manipulation of climate and encouraged awareness of global warming.

The lectures had been set with the Laureates Rowland and Crutzen, a strong focus on greenhouse gases and climate change. From their focus have Rowland and Crutzen added, but there were strong overlaps of Crutzen introductory lecture and Rowland’s. Crutzen said that with "but I have the slides better."

F. Sherwood Rowland’s slide were followed by a basic discussion of greenhouse and gases and necessary requirements for a molecule to act as a greenhouse gas (it should have three atoms and it should have a reasonably long lifetime in the atmosphere). Rowland further talked about radiative forcings including the albedo effect mediated by clouds, snow and ice. A discussion of ice core measurements yielding the earth's record of CO2 and temperature changes follows.
Rowland's talk was followed by that of his fellow Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen who reiterated several of Rowland's points. Crutzen starts by noting the tremendous increase in human and cattle population, industrial output, water and energy usage and urbanization that has taken place over the last three centuries. The problem of water usage is especially acute and never readily appreciated; it takes 12,000 liters of water to produce a liter of coffee for instance. Nitrogen fixation has also been tremendously accelerated with the invention of the Haber-Bosch process. All these developments, while raising our standard of living, have also put significant strain on our biosphere and atmosphere.

During the Discussion session, Crutzen also coined the term Anthropocene to describe the geological epoch in which we are now to where the people have emerged as a veritable terra-forming species, like the glaciers of the last ice age. Which is characterized by ever Anthroprocene acceleration, we consume more and more water, more and more oil, more and more of everything and other species are dying out for it. Human activities are affecting, and in many cases out-competing, natural processes, for instance causing the ‘ozone hole’, the rise of greenhouse gases with their impact on climate, urban and regional air pollution, ‘acid rain’, species extinction, with all their consequences for human and ecosystem health.

Next day, Molina began with the basics of climate change and acknowledges the work of the IPCC in establishing a consensus on anthropomorphic climate change. He talks about the common objections of skeptics who point to changes in the climate throughout earth's history and make this an argument for challenging the concern about recent changes in climate.
So as usual, the cardinal question; what are the solutions? As Molina and many others have noted, at least some drastic changes in our personal and global habits would be necessary to deal with climate change. Alternative energies are key in mitigating CO2 emissions, as is also carbon capture. Gratifyingly Molina also noted the inclusion of nuclear power in future energy options and especially notes the safety and efficiency of the new generation of nuclear reactors. Molina concluded with a list of solutions to mitigating climate change. These include pricing or taxing carbon emissions and further research in energy technology.

In the quest of solution of Climate Change and Global warming, his saying, “People have to follow the Red Light”! According to Molina, “unless we inculcate personal habits and social responsibilities, use energy more efficiently, control population and reach out to others in improving the state of our world, we may indeed end up playing with our planet, and that we don't want to do.” This is Molina who was trying to point some solution towards Climate change. Beyond this crucial fact, I found him as a modest personality at the evening discussion session.

With Mario Molina at the Discussion Session

He is a chemical engineer! I came across him with a big grin as if I found someone from my field. He didn’t disappoint me either. We had a healthy conversation, even regarding the Climate condition in developing country like Bangladesh. I found him so knowledgeable about these contemporary burning issues!

Trio of GFP: Gem of Wisdom

2010-07-09T21:22:00.004+06:00

Biology is not my cup of tea. For some unreasonable reason behind, I always feel such repulsion. Even, I took Environmental Science course instead of Biochemical Engineering course during my undergraduate study, only to avoid biology. So, the “synergistic effect” of at least three lectures made me “little bit understandable” of the term “GFP- Green Fluorescent Protein”, while those lessons were given by the three Spotters of this GFP!!!

Last year's chemistry Nobel Prize was one of the most softball predictions ever made for the Nobel Prize. GFP has become so widely used in chemistry, biology and medicine that it is easy to forget that someone had to discover it and develop the technology. Martin Chalfie, Osamu Shimomura and Roger Tsien, the trio was awarded Nobel Prize in 2008 for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (GFP), which is now an integral part of the life science.

Osamu Shimomura's talk is essentially historical. He starts by reviewing different types of fluorescent reactions in nature resulting in bioluminescence. A particularly striking example of bioluminescence concerns Aequorin, a small photoprotein in the jellyfish Aequoria victoria. In the presence of calcium ions another ring opening reaction takes place that produces blue fluorescence. Because of its dependence on calcium the reaction is a valuable one for measuring intracellular calcium levels.

Interestingly, Shimomura stated that most of the above findings were made before the 1980s. GFP and the revolution came later, but it would not have been possible if the foundation for understanding and studying bioluminescence had not been previous laid.

Later, Martin Chalfie starts by noting that the winning the Nobel Prize got him Andy Warhol's 15 minutes of fame. He showed us a Google news snapshot taken the day he won the prize which demonstrated that he had finally made it into the rarefied heights of the land of celebrities, very much in the same league as Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse!

Incidentally Chalfie used some unpublished results that his wife, who was also a biochemist, was working on. In return Chalfie had to promise his wife in writing that he would make coffee, cook her a French dinner and take out the garbage every night. This is one important take-home message for students and future scientists; science can involve some radical compromises with life.

Chalfie ended with a couple of important lessons about science:
1. Science is cumulative.
2. The students and postdocs are the real innovators in science. Many times it is easy to forget that they are the originator of some of the key details of Nobel Prize-winning ideas.
3. Basic research is essential and is the engine that drives innovation. Science cannot be done with too specific goals in mind.
4. All life should be studied, not just model organisms.

After the lecture, I took the chance to talk with this ever smiling down-to-earth personality, Chalfie. He seemed so happy to talk about his wife and most importantly her contribution to his research career as well as personal life.

Martin Chalfie with his big grin!

Roger Tsien talks a little about his own background. He is the youngest of 3 brothers and comes from a family of engineers and wanted to find a unique 'ecological' niche for himself. Charles Darwin was another youngest child, and he did manage to carve his own niche. Tsien was fascinated by colors from an early stage and became interested in biology and chemistry. One of the key points emphasized by Tsien was that young researchers should explore interdisciplinary areas where traditional barriers may prevent the transfer of knowledge.

Tsien, giving the lecture

Tsien then mentions some of the limitations of fluorescent proteins. They can be too big and their excitation wavelengths may not penetrate tissue. Plus the obvious scientific and moral problems associated with effecting gene transfer of GFP into humans are apparent.

Tsien concludes by talking a little about his current research which involves investigating metastasis. The work includes imaging tumors and nerves with GFP. Green tumors are easier to visualize and remove with surgery than non-fluorescent tumors. At the same time nerves should not be removed, and labeling them with a different color helps to avoid this. Imaging techniques provide a very sensitive technique for surgeons to distinguish unwanted tumors from necessary nerve growth. Tsien ended with a spectacular image of a plate displaying bacteria that have been colored by different fluorescent protein expression.

I can contemplate that Tsien, Chalfie's and Shimomura's talks held many notable lessons.

1. “You should take risks and work on big problems; even if you don't succeed at least you would have tried and learnt something.”
2. “Learn to make lemonade from lemon, sometimes persistence pay off” – Tsien.
3. “Accept that your best papers may be rejected from fashionable journals, or may be accepted for the wrong reasons.”
This was Tsien referring to the fact that his groundbreaking Science paper containing the crystal structure of GFP was initially going to be rejected after two bad referee reports, and was only accepted after the editors heard that a similar paper was to be published in another journal. Chalfie had similar problems when he wanted to have the word ‘new’ in his 1994 Science paper title, and then one of the editors thought the green-colored journal cover he had designed would look better in another color!
4. “Try to find important problems that put your neuroses to constructive work. Try to find projects that give you some sensual pleasure” – Tsien
5. ‘Prizes are ultimately matter of luck, so avoid being motivated or impressed by it’

Richard Ernst: More than a Scientist, a Philosopher

2010-07-09T20:58:00.005+06:00

Anyone who ever had doubts that the Nobel Prize winner can maintain any interest beyond the science, who ever thought, for scientists the world was a purely rational matter, was informed that morning better, while Richard R. Ernst, Nobel laureate of 1991, took the stage to a plea for a look beyond the scientific plate boundary.

The start was in the early day’s surface chemist Gerhard Ertl made a few comments about the complexity of the surface chemistry. His colleague, Richard R. Ernst started immediately after the counter-program. Chemistry To him it was only in passing, to the fascination with foreign cultures and their art, and (life) philosophy all the more.

The material importance is located to the field is Ernst reproduction in resolution in NMR technology was fulfilled by the fact that the initial reflex of mind in the production of human cerebral integrity is quite immortal fact in this aura.

For seriousness - and this is certainly an important piece of advice to young researchers - it is perfectly clear: scientists do themselves a favor if they dedicate themselves exclusively and with blinkers on just one thing. Although we have a goal in mind (namely, the science or just a "tribute in Stockholm"), but the paths of science are easier to deal with when one has two legs: “Passions & Professions”.

One might caricature an ambitious scientist as a one-legged person hopping along a dusty road without any chance to reach ever the remote goal. He or she can move much more efficiently by developing a second leg beyond the scientific discipline. And the creative interaction between the professional and the passionate leg may lead ultimately to the inspiration he or she is longing for.
To start seriously reminded of the all too familiar, Albert Einstein and his violin. But there are many other great scientists who used their musical passions: Richard Feynman as a drummer and Manfred Eigen as a pianist.

Ernst Philosophy!

“Curiosity and creativity - so serious - and ideally go hand in hand. The world is wide open for new surprises and discoveries. Here there is only one piece of advice: "Keep your eyes open." – Ernst saying!

Ernst described his own career for him 1968 - resulted in a few years ago researchers in the U.S. - returned to Switzerland and on many trips to Asia. Ernst went to Kathmandu, then more destinations in Asia, And in the Himalayas in Tibet, he discovered his passion: the traditional Tibetan folk art and culture, the Buddhist philosophy. Ernst's own interests extend to Tibetan art and Buddhist philosophy, and he is illustrating this interest through several paintings and illustrating. He talked about Buddhist 'enlightened beings' that have been displayed on many beautiful paintings. Some key tenets of Buddhist philosophy including the eightfold way were also briefly discussed. Everything was connected with everything so seriously towards the end of his presentation.

And then of course there are still a bridge between the scientist Richard R. Ernst, and his enthusiasm for Tibet and Buddhism: he mentioned the use of infrared and Raman spectroscopic techniques to analyze the paintings ("Unfortunately NMR is useless in these cases"- as per Ernst). Ernst himself has tried his hand at a little bit of painting in the old tradition, using primitive, colored chemicals. His enthusiasm has led him to install a Raman spectrometer in his bedroom that provides instruction during sleepless nights. Raman spectroscopy reveals the use of several rather simple chemicals in the paintings, including malachite green, carbon black, cinnabar and vegetable dyes. The conclusion is that extra-curricular activities form an essential 'second leg' of your life and ended up in earnest with the advice to the audience:
“Do not become one-sided nerds. Never forget your passions!”

I just wondered, one lecture that nicely combined science and art was delivered by Richard Ernst. The main message of his talk was that to be a complete and well-rounded individual, one should explore interests beyond the boundaries of science by looking to the arts and humanities.

At the end of this enchanting presentation, I was like rubbing my eyes in astonishment! I didn’t want to miss the chance to take some moments with this great philosopher. So, I rushed to catch him after the lecture.

Ernst, just after his “beyond science” Presentation!

He was amiable enough to talk and perhaps, having kind of philosophic mood. The summary of his points (of course, beyond science!!) towards me gave me a thought about the significance of being a good human rather than being a good scientist!

Gerhard Ertl: a Tradition of Nobel on Catalysis, a Classic of Future

2010-07-09T20:52:00.002+06:00

Exactly one hundred years ago the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald received the Nobel prize for his work on the topic of catalysis. And as we see today his research work have really been pathbreaking: Without catalysts modern chemistry would not be possible. It is only logical, that catalysis also plays a major role in this year's Nobel Laureates Meeting.

The start of 2009 Lindau Meeting was made the sole winner of 2007: Gerhard Ertl. With Him, the organizers have taken in my opinion a good choice for the opening of the lecture series, he is in the tradition of a number of Nobel Prize winners: Wilhelm Ostwald (1909), Fritz Haber (1918) and Carl Bosch (1931).

And so he presented himself well. "From atoms to complexity - reactions on surfaces" will be the title of his speech, focusing the exciting effects that happen when solids are coated with gossamer surfaces (that work as catalyst). First, he paid tribute to the foundations that had been created for the Ostwald catalysis sensitize the public then for the topic of nitrogen fixation. Accordingly threatened at the beginning of the 20th Century, a shortage of nitrogenous fertilizers, since natural resources) (eg, cow manure can not be arbitrarily increased. A solution of the problem was indeed ubiquitous, because nitrogen is a major component of air (80%), but the crux of the story is that nitrogen is chemically hardly reactive. One has only to overcome this inertia and fix nitrogen in a more accessible form, such as ammonia.

Here Ertl brings into play the catalysts that Haber has discovered 100 years ago fairly accurately for the reaction between nitrogen and hydrogen. They facilitate the synthesis of ammonia and were used by Bosch in 1910 in an industrial process, the Haber-Bosch process. Every chemistry student knows exactly, but the exact mechanism at the molecular level has been elucidated until much later, by Gerhard Ertl. That He was eventually thanked the Nobel Prize. In principle, the gas molecules interact (nitrogen and hydrogen) with the catalyst surface and thus can be easily divided and recombined. Before he goes into detail, says the winner but it was "too complicated" for his listeners and moves to another popular application of catalysts, the car.

Here the same principles apply, only the gases that are raising awareness of other Ertl: Carbon monoxide and oxygen. With the help of modern physical methods, it was possible for him to observe the motion of atoms on the surface, or map the concentration profile of certain gases in real time. He shows videos with beautiful circles and spirals, which (similar are the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction) is a result of oscillatory processes, and reveal a mysterious order of the microcosm. His comparisons with paintings by Paul Klee and Van Gogh are not far-fetched. Ertl concluded by demonstrating turbulence resulting from chemical waves. At this point, he said, we have progressed from atoms to complexity, requiring a different kind of understanding. At the end he gives us a little philosophy on the way: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

At the evening informal discussion session, he also told a story, and we learned that he really is a physicist and he was done by his mentor at the interface between gas and solid attention as a research topic. As the first steps were not very successful, he draws into serious consideration the science of the nail to hang, but his wife said he should remain scientists. A year later he became a professor.

He encouraged us young scientists to follow several of curiosity, even with the risk of failure. It is the privilege of a researcher to be allowed to make mistakes. One should not believe what others say, just as new can be explored.

The development of chemistry is his opinion, to more complex systems, such as living organisms, and away from chemical equilibrium. To describe these states to be especially advanced mathematical skills are required. Thus were the chemists of the future mathematician or a physicist. Note: This says a physicist!

Opening Ceremony: Illustration of Grandeur & Splendor of Colorful Lindau!

2010-07-09T20:19:00.005+06:00

We gathered through the scenic streets to the Bodensee where the sessions was going to be held in the Inselhalle. The meeting began in front of a packed audience in the Inselhalle. The region is known for apples and these grace the tables outside. Students and scholars from all nationalities are seen, eager to open their minds.

Countess Bettina Bernadotte, the President of the Council, opened the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, for the first time in her role as President of the Council after having taken over the office from Countess Sonja Bernadotte (1944–2008) in October of the previous year. In her opening speech, Countess Bernadotte emphasized the uniqueness of the Nobel Laureate Meetings: “It is about people, not papers”. The aim of the Lindau Meetings is to interest people in research and science as well as to inspire scientists and to bring them together from around the world.

Countess Bettina Bernadotte with all the Laureates presented the Meeting, 2009

Here is an interesting fact! One might watch curiously, who wear which colour around their neck. Which color do young researchers have? What does orange keychains mean? And most importantly: How could I recognize a Nobel laureate?

When the ceremony is officially opened by Countess Bettina Bernadotte, the view in the audience offered me a truly "colorful" picture. A lot had been said about the sense and meaning of the different keychain colors. These were the accreditation and release of the keychains. There are young researchers from many different countries, renowned scientists next to young students and press peoples as well. And as diverse the participants are, as colorful are their keychains on their neck!

To meet the answers to these questions, I got to know the Lindau Committee’s meticulous work plan. Finally, I figured out the color code of keychains, those were accredited to identify different groups attended the meeting.
And here comes the categories:
• Green is for members of the foundation and the curatorship as well as scientific leaders
• Black is for members of the administrative office
• White is for alumni
• Orange is for service providers
• Dark blue and red are for further guests
• Gray is for young researchers
• Light Blue is for laureates
• Yellow for the press

Finally, I cannot but mention that, among the many colored ribbons, there is only one category, which are invited to afternoon informal discussions with the laureates: the young researchers. Not only that, this ’gray’ sign was also complimentary ticket for several public services at Lindau for young researchers. What a privilege!!!

Pre Lindau Moments: My Follies Cost a Lot!

2010-07-09T20:08:00.003+06:00

It started with a dilemma while The Daily Newspaper Prothom Alo rendered me a thought! Being a student of engineering, I was wondering if I could be eligible to meet dozens of Elite personalities of natural science! In 2009 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was dedicated to Chemistry. Textbook and web page “chemistry celebs” will be within the eyes focal length! – I dared to dream and applied through Bangladesh Lindau Council. Amidst back and forth uncertainty, I got the e-mail from Lindau council informing of my preliminary nomination. Final decision is under process! Fingers Crossed! Time is running out. Almost, I left the hope. Suddenly, yes, I received the mail form Lindau with final nomination. It was no less than “early morning call from Stockholm” (at least at my position)!

Dreams came into reality!! I found fellow participants; Shishir and Biplob are also my batch mates. So, it was only a matter of time of friendship. First time overseas trip for us. Excitement was ebullient at the Boiling Point. But, problems came as salt addition to the solution to cause Boiling Point Elevation! How could we manage the huge amount of money for the trip? Finally, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences came into play to heat up the whole thing! With its initiative, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences and North American Bangladeshi Islamic Community (NABIC) jointly sponsored three of us.

Dream finally materialized! Our rate limiting reaction had overcome the high activation energy barrier of all the monetary facts and finally reached its goal by the catalytic activity of all through aid provided by Bangladesh Academy of Science. At the end, we three had a mingle feeling- first time oversees trip to meet atleast dozens of Nobel Laureates!

It was 26th June 2009 morning. The sun shined, so did our dream! We started for the overwhelming journey to Germany. It is worth remembering, we were blessed with the warm attachment of Dr. Mesbah Uddin Ahmad and his wife Dr. Farida Akhter in the whole trip. Anyways, after the long journey, we have reached at Munich Airport at night. We didn’t even know that a little Bangladesh was waiting for us! Yes, it was Sumit Paul, BUET Graduate, now pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering in Germany. The more I tell about him is less! Needless to say, his hospitability reminded us of Bangladesh there. We stayed his place that night. I still can relish the taste of Mango Lassi we had at Hotel Surbahar at Munich, which all were sponsored by Sumit Paul. Next day, the whole day we the whole team roamed around the Munich City Centre and had some “Window Shopping”, as it took a lot to count euro while we convert it to Bangladeshi currency!

We, the whole team at Munich City Centre with Sumit Paul

Finally, on 27th June 2009, we reached Lindau. I never consider me as a street smart! For including some safety factor, I tried to act some smart and bought O2 Sim for communication with others within Germany. But, my bad luck couldn’t but that bad! In the whole journey, I had to count the euro for three times for this Sims. One time, Sim didn’t work, and rest two times, I lost the pin code. It results is overall 60 EURO (~ 6,000 Taka).

This was not the end; unfortunately, my hotel accommodation was far distant from the conference hall. So, I had to use the Bus to reach hall everyday. But, three times I missed the bus there! I had to call taxi to reach the conference which later costed me not less than 30 EURO! My stupidity costs a lot!

আমাদের তিন গবেষক যাচ্ছেন লিন্ডাও নোবেল সম্মেলনে

2010-07-09T18:22:00.003+06:00

http://www.bangladeshnews24.com/prothom-alo/newspaper/2009/04/26/news0808.php

বাংলাদেশের দুই গবেষক যাচ্ছেন লিন্ডাও নোবেল সম্মেলনে

2010-04-21T18:44:00.001+06:00

প্রতিবছর জার্মানির লিন্ডাও শহরে হাজির হন নোবেল বিজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীরা। তাঁদের সান্নিধ্য পেতে সেখানে যান পাঁচ শতাধিক তরুণ বিজ্ঞানী। এ বছর লিন্ডাও নোবেল সম্মেলনের বিষয় পদার্থবিজ্ঞান, রসায়ন ও চিকিৎসা। ২০০৭ সাল থেকে বাংলাদেশের তরুণ গবেষকেরা হাজির থাকছেন সেখানে। এরই ধারাবাহিকতায় এবারের সম্মেলনের দুই বাংলাদেশি গবেষককে নিয়ে এ প্রতিবেদন লিখেছেন মুনির হাসান | তারিখ: ১৮-০৪-২০১০

প্রয়াত পরমাণুবিজ্ঞানী আবদুল ফাত্তাহর প্রবল উৎসাহ এবং অধ্যাপক মুহম্মদ জাফর ইকবালের প্রচেষ্টায় ২০০৭ সালে সর্বপ্রথম বাংলাদেশের ছয়জন তরুণ বিজ্ঞানী জার্মানির লিন্ডাও শহরে অনুষ্ঠিত নোবেলজয়ীদের সম্মেলনে যোগ দেন। তাঁদের অভিজ্ঞতা আর আনন্দ নিয়ে বিজ্ঞান প্রজন্মে ছাপা হয় কয়েকটি প্রতিবেদন। সেই প্রতিবেদন পড়েন ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের প্রাণরসায়ন ও অণুপ্রাণবিজ্ঞান বিভাগের শিক্ষার্থী তানিয়া রহমান। ‘তখন মনে হয়েছিল, বাহ্, এটা তো খুব সম্মানজনক সম্মেলন, যেখানে গোটা বিশ্বের নোবেলজয়ীদের সঙ্গে তরুণ বিজ্ঞানী ও গবেষকেরা একসঙ্গে বসে তাঁদের জ্ঞান আর অভিজ্ঞতা বিনিময় করতে পারেন।’ বলেন তানিয়া। তখন থেকে নজর রাখছিলেন, কবে সুযোগ আসবে। এর মধ্যে তাঁর স্নাতকোত্তর ডিগ্রি অর্জন শেষ হয়েছে। স্নাতক (সম্মান) প্রথম শ্রেণীতে দ্বিতীয় হয়ে পেয়েছেন ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের ডিন পুরস্কার আর মাস্টার্সে প্রথম শ্রেণীতে প্রথম হয়ে অর্জন করেছেন সম্মানজনক স্বর্ণপদক।
ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের প্রাণরসায়ন ও অণুপ্রাণবিজ্ঞান বিভাগে সম্মানের (অনার্স) শিক্ষার্থী হিসেবে যোগ দেওয়ার পর থেকে এ বিষয়টির প্রতি তানিয়ার ভালো লাগা শুরু। ‘মনে হতো, এসব বায়োকেমিক্যাল বিক্রিয়া তো মানবদেহেই ঘটছে, বিষয়গুলোকে প্রাণবন্ত আর মজার মনে হতো। মাস্টার্সে তাঁর গবেষণার বিষয় ছিল কলেরা প্রতিরোধক ভ্যাকসিন ৬ থেকে ১২ মাসের শিশুদের রোগ প্রতিরোধে কী প্রভাব ফেলে তা জানা। তানিয়া গবেষণার কাজটি করেন আন্তর্জাতিক উদরাময় গবেষণাকেন্দ্র, বাংলাদেশের ল্যাবরেটরি সায়েন্স বিভাগের ইমিউনোলজি ইউনিটে। সেখানে এক বছর গবেষণা কর্মকর্তা হিসেবে কাটিয়ে ২০০৮ সালে তানিয়া তাঁর নিজ বিভাগে যোগ দেন প্রভাষক হিসেবে। বর্তমানে তানিয়ার গবেষণার বিষয় একটি নিউরোট্রান্সমিটার উৎপাদনকারী এনজাইম, ডোপেমাইন বেটা হাইড্রোক্সিলেইজ এবং বাংলাদেশের নিউরোলজির রোগীদের মধ্যে এই এনজাইমের অ্যাকটিভিটি এনালাইস করা। সমপ্রতি এ বিষয়ে তাঁর একটি নিবন্ধ প্রকাশিত হয়েছে আন্তর্জাতিক জার্নালে। এর মধ্যে তিনি নজর রেখেছেন বিজ্ঞন প্রজন্মের পাতায়। পদার্থবিজ্ঞান, রসায়ন হয়ে ২০১০ সালে সুযোগ আসে তাঁর আবেদন করার। প্রিয় পাতায় খবরটি দেখে তাত্ক্ষণিকভাবে আবেদন করেন। এর পরই জানতে পারেন, বাংলাদেশের দুজন তরুণ গবেষকের একজন হিসেবে নির্বাচিত হয়েছেন এবারের লিন্ডাও নোবেল সম্মেলনে যোগ দিতে।
যে সময় তানিয়া লিন্ডাও সম্মেলনের খবর প্রথম জানতে পারেন, ঠিক তখনই ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের এক তুখোড় তরুণ ঠিক করেন তাঁর নিজের আবেদনের। ২০০৭ সালের অংশগ্রহণকারীদের মধ্যে একজন ছিলেন তাঁর বিভাগের শিক্ষক—খাদেমুল ইসলাম; আর অন্যজন বিভাগের জ্যেষ্ঠ—তৌহিদুর রহমান। তখন থেকে অনুপ্রাণিত মাহদী মূসাকেও অপেক্ষা করতে হয়েছে ২০১০ সাল পর্যন্ত। কারণ এক বছর একটি বিষয়ের গবেষকেরা সুযোগ পান নোবেলজয়ীদের সান্নিধ্যে যাওয়ার। এর মধ্যে মাহদী মূসার জেনেটিক ইঞ্জিনিয়ারিং ও বায়োটেকনোলজি বিভাগে স্নাতকোত্তর শেষ হয়েছে। মেধাবী মাহদী স্নাতক (সম্মান) প্রথম শ্রেণীতে প্রথম আর স্নাতকোত্তরে প্রথম শ্রেণীতে দ্বিতীয় হয়েছেন। লিখে ফেলেছেন আট-আটটি গবেষণা-নিবন্ধ। বায়োটেকনোলজি থেকে বায়ো-ইনফরমেটিকস—উভয় ক্ষেত্রে অর্জন করেছেন দক্ষতা। এখন কাজ করছেন বাংলাদেশের সবচেয়ে গৌরবময় জেনেটিক প্রকল্পে। শতাধিক আবেদনকারীকে পেছনে ফেলে মূসাও তাই পেয়েছেন লিন্ডাও নোবেল সম্মেলনে বাংলাদেশের পতাকা নিয়ে যাওয়ার সুযোগ।
আগামী ২৭ জুন থেকে ৩ জুলাই জার্মানির লিন্ডাও শহরে তানিয়া আর মূসা যোগ দেবেন সারা পৃথিবীর ছয় শতাধিক তরুণ গবেষক, বিজ্ঞানী, শিক্ষকসহ পদার্থবিজ্ঞান, রসায়ন ও চিকিৎসাশাস্ত্রে নোবেলজয়ী একঝাঁক বিজ্ঞানীর সঙ্গে।

লিন্ডাও সম্মেলন
১৯৫১ সাল থেকে জার্মানির লিন্ডাও শহরে অনুষ্ঠিত হচ্ছে নোবেলজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের সম্মেলন। তবে সেখানে কেবল নোবেলজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীরা থাকেন না, তাঁদের সঙ্গে যোগ দেন সারা বিশ্বের বিভিন্ন দেশ থেকে একদল তরুণ-তরুণী, বিজ্ঞানকে কেন্দ্র করে যাঁরা তাঁদের ভবিষ্যতের স্বপ্ন দেখেন। প্রথম দিকে রসায়ন ও পদার্থবিজ্ঞান থাকলেও পরে এর সঙ্গে যুক্ত হয়েছেন চিকিৎসা ও অর্থনীতিতে নোবেলজয়ীরা। ২০০৯ সালের সম্মেলনে উপজীব্য ছিল রসায়ন। এর আগের বছর দুটি সম্মেলন হয়েছে পদার্থবিজ্ঞান ও অর্থনীতির। চার-পাঁচ দিনের অনুষ্ঠানের অনেকটা জুড়ে থাকে নতুন নতুন বিষয়ের তাত্ত্বিক আলোচনা, থাকে সেমিনার-সিম্পোজিয়াম। তবে সবকিছুর ঊর্ধ্বে থাকে বিজ্ঞানীদের সঙ্গে আড্ডা দেওয়ার সুযোগ, তাঁদের সঙ্গে ঘনিষ্ঠ হওয়ার সুযোগ, কাছ থেকে দেখার সৌভাগ্য!
কেবল নোবেলজয়ীরা নন, বিভিন্ন দেশ থেকে তরুণ বিজ্ঞানীদের সঙ্গে আসেন তাঁদের মেনটর বা শিক্ষাদূতেরা, তাঁরাও নাকি প্রথম সারির বিজ্ঞানী। কাজেই এ সম্মেলন কেবল জানার নয়, জানানোর ও সম্পর্ক গড়ে তোলার সুযোগও বটে।
৫০ বছর হয়ে গেলেও বাংলাদেশ থেকে তরুণ-তরুণীদের সেখানে পাঠানোর কথা ভাবা হয়নি আগে কখনো। আগেই বলেছি, ২০০৭ সালে ভিয়েনা-প্রবাসী প্রয়াত বিজ্ঞানী আবদুল ফাত্তাহর উদ্যোগে বাংলাদেশ থেকে তরুণ গবেষকদের অংশগ্রহণের উদ্যোগ নেওয়া হয়। ২০০৭, ২০০৮ ও ২০০৯ সালের চারটি সম্মেলনে এ পর্যন্ত বাংলাদেশের ১৩ জন গবেষক অংশ নিয়েছেন।

যেভাবে হলো মনোনয়ন
এবারের সমন্বিত সম্মেলনের জন্য বাংলাদেশের আগ্রহী বিজ্ঞানীদের আবেদনপত্র চাওয়া হয় ইন্টারনেটে (http://www.lindau-bangladesh.org)। উদ্দেশ্য ছিল দেশে ও দেশের বাইরে গবেষণারত সবাইকে সুযোগ দেওয়া। নির্ধারিত সময়ের মধ্যে পাওয়া সব আবেদনপত্র যাচাই-বাছাইয়ের পর লিন্ডাও বাংলাদেশ প্রাথমিকভাবে নির্বাচিত ব্যক্তিদের তালিকা পাঠিয়ে দেয় আয়োজকদের বরাবর। এভাবে সারা পৃথিবী থেকে প্রায় ২০ হাজার গবেষক আবেদন করেছেন। বিশ্বের প্রায় ৬০টি দেশ থেকে পাওয়া এক হাজার ৫০০ মনোনয়ন জমা পড়ে লিন্ডাও কমিটির কাছে। সেখান থেকে প্রায় ৬০০ জনকে নির্বাচন করা হয়েছে। এর মধ্যে রয়েছেন আমাদের তানিয়া ও মূসা।

তানিয়া ও মূসার আরও কথা
তানিয়া আর মাহদী মূসার মধ্যে একটি মিল, তাঁরা দুজনই এসেছেন চট্টগ্রাম থেকে। তানিয়ার বাবা মো. শফিকুর রহমান একজন অবসরপ্রাপ্ত উপসচিব। মা তানবীর সুলতানা গৃহিণী। দুই বোনের মধ্যে তানিয়া বড়। তাঁর এ সাফল্যের পেছনে বাবা আর মাকে এগিয়ে রাখেন তানিয়া। সঙ্গে বিভাগের শিক্ষকদেরও, ‘আমার আজকের এ অবস্থানের জন্য আমি আমার বিভাগীয় সব শিক্ষকের কাছে বিশেষভাবে ঋণী।’
মাহদীও অবশ্য মা-বাবা ও শিক্ষকদের কথা বলেছেন। তবে তিনি কয়েকজন শিক্ষকের কথা আলাদা করে উল্লেখ করেন। তাঁরা হচ্ছেন অধ্যাপক রফিকুর রহমান, অধ্যাপক হাসিনা খান ও অধ্যাপক জেবা ইসলাম সিরাজ। তিনজনই আমাদের স্বনামধন্য বিজ্ঞানী।
কুমিল্লা ফয়জুন্নেসা স্কুল, চট্টগ্রাম কলেজ হয়ে ঢাকা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে পা রেখেছেন তানিয়া। অন্যদিকে চট্টগ্রাম নাসিরাবাদ স্কুল, চট্টগ্রাম কলেজ হয়ে জেনেটিক ইঞ্জিনিয়ারিং পড়তে আসা মাহদীর। মাহদীর বাবা মুহাম্মদ মূসা ও মা সাবেরা খাতুন দুজনই চিকিৎসক। চার ভাই এক বোনের মধ্যে মাহদী সবার বড়।
বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ে এসে দুজনই গবেষণায় নজর দিয়েছেন, যার স্বীকৃতি তাঁরা পেলেন। তবে দেশের প্রচলিত শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা নিয়ে সন্তুষ্ট নন এ দুজনের কেউই। মাহদী তো উচ্চ কণ্ঠে বলেই ফেললেন, ‘আমাদের শিক্ষাব্যবস্থা মেধাবিকাশে খুব একটা সহায়ক নয়। যথাযথ সংস্কারে পরিকল্পনা গ্রহণ করা প্রয়োজন।’ এর সঙ্গে এ রকম আরও সব সুযোগ যাতে তরুণ শিক্ষার্থী-গবেষকেরা পান, সে জন্য আরও উদ্যোগ দেখতে চান তানিয়া ও মাহদী। কারণ, ‘আমাদের দেশের ছেলেমেয়েরা এ রকম সুযোগ আরও পেলে ভালো হতো। জ্ঞাননির্ভর সমাজ গড়ে উঠত।’

এগিয়ে যাওয়ার রসদ
নোবেলজয়ীদের সম্মেলনে যোগ দেওয়ার সুযোগ পেয়ে খুশি আমাদের এই দুই গবেষক। ‘সম্মেলনে নোবেল পুরস্কারজয়ী বিজ্ঞানী-গবেষকদের সান্নিধ্যে এসে আমি তাঁদের চিন্তাধারা সম্পর্কে ধারণা পেতে চাই।’ বললেন মূসা। ‘আমি বিশ্বাস করি, এই সম্মেলনে অর্জিত অভিজ্ঞতা আমার ভবিষ্যৎ শিক্ষা ও গবেষণা-জীবনে সহায়ক হবে।’ নিজের আগামী দিনের পড়ালেখা ও দেশের বায়োইনফরমেটিকস লড়াইয়ে নিজের অবদানটুকু রাখতে চান মূসা।
তানিয়া তাঁর পরিকল্পনার কথা ব্যাখ্যা করেন এভাবে, ‘আমি মনে করি, জার্মানির লিন্ডাও সম্মেলনে যোগদান আমার একাডেমিক ক্যারিয়ারের এক বিরাট অর্জন। আমার বিশ্বাস, এ সম্মেলনে যোগদান ও নোবেলজয়ীদের, বিশেষত মেডিসিন ও ফিজিওলজি-বিষয়ক নোবেলজয়ী বিজ্ঞানীদের বক্তৃতা এবং তাঁদের সঙ্গে আলোচনা আমার গবেষণা ও বিষয়ভিত্তিক জ্ঞানকে বহু দূর এগিয়ে নেবে। অদূর ভবিষ্যতে আমি স্বাস্থ্য ও রোগ প্রতিরোধবিষয়ক গবেষণা এবং উন্নয়নশীল দেশে শিশুদের মৃত্যুহার হ্রাসে অবদান রাখতে চাই।’
তানিয়া রহমান ও মাহদী মূসার মতো বিজ্ঞানী ও গবেষকদের হাত ধরে বদলাবে এ দেশ। বাংলাদেশকে বদলাতে হবেই।
আমরা বদলের যাত্রা শুরু করেছি। জ্ঞান আর শিক্ষাকে পুঁজি করে, আধুনিক প্রযুক্তিকে হাতিয়ার করে এ লড়াইয়ে আমরা জিতবই জিতব।

The Daily Star: Meeting the Nobel Prize Winners

2009-01-22T23:37:00.003+06:00

THE “Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates” is a global rendezvous of scholars. Each year this conference is arranged to accumulate the Nobel Laureates and academicians as well as young researchers from all over the world beside the Lake Constance in Lindau, Germany. The theme of this conference is mainly four broad topics in which the Nobel Prize is awarded: Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, and Economic Science.

This scientific program encompasses various policy debates, interdisciplinary platform discussions, and lectures presented by the Laureates. It provides the scope for getting acquainted with great thinkers of this time and for experiencing cross-cultural pattern of academics. Demonstration of the groundbreaking research works by the Nobel Laureates welcomes young minds to exercise their talent and broaden their spectrum of knowledge. This conference not only deals with textbook notions but also focuses on application and implementation in real world.

In 2008 the 3rd Meeting of the Winners of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was held by the Lindau authority in collaboration with University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. I was one of the fortunate participants in the “Young Researcher” category. It is a great honor and privilege for me to be the sole participant representing my country as well as my institution, University of Dhaka.

Apart from the two Bangladeshi participants, Dr. Abu Shonchoy (Fellow, Australian Academy of Science, Australia) and me, there was Prof. Dr. Muhammad Yunus (Nobel Peace prize, 2006) in the meeting of Nobel laureates as the first Bangladeshi ever.

On the first day of the event, a symphony by a group of musicians proclaimed the opening of 3rd Lindau Meetings of Nobel laureates, 2008. After the opening address by Countess Bettina Berandotte, Dr. Joseph Ackermann was declared as a new member in the Honorary Senate by the authority. Then a panel discussion was arranged highlighting “Systemic Risks in Financial markets”. The moderator was David Wessel, Editor, Wall Street Journal. The panelists were: Prof. Mcfadden, Prof Yunus, Prof Scholes and Prof Stiglitz. The inter-active discussion session was mainly focused on the financial activities of Europe and United States.

Afterwards a lecture by Prof. Yunus revealed the new possibilities of micro-credit to eradicate extreme poverty from the globe. He highlighted the theme “Social Business is the Solution”. His speech convinced the audience and gave an optimistic view to do social business, a new concept of non-profit business (to be more specific, business without any monetary benefit).

All in all, the event was awe inspiring in terms of the potentials it promised. It is a dream come true for any young researcher.

Fahim Hassan

(Student of Economics Department, DU)

Nature Video presents five short films on the future of physics.

2008-12-23T09:10:00.001+06:00

Nature Video presents five short films on the future of physics. Recorded at the 2008 Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, these films capture the conversations between young researchers and physics Laureates George Smoot, William Phillips, John Hall, David Gross and Gerardus 't Hooft. Join them as they grapple with universal ideas including dark matter, dark energy, the Large Hadron Collider, space-time and quantum computing.

Lectures Online

2008-12-23T09:02:00.002+06:00

http://www.lindau-nobel.de/LecturesOnline.AxCMS?ActiveID=1173

Prof. Dr. Muhammad Yunus, 2008 - 3rd Meeting in Economic Sciences

2008-12-23T08:50:00.008+06:00

Nobel Laureates discuss on Climate Changes and Energy Challenges

2008-12-19T04:57:00.003+06:00

Chaired by Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Nobel laureates Deisenhofer (Chem '88), Giaever (Phy '73), Michel (Chem '88), Oshero (Phy '96), Rubbia (Phy '84), von Klitzing (Phy '85), Steinberger (Phy '88) sat down to discuss the two burning issues of the present: energy crisis and climate change. First the chair, Schellnhuber described the issues to be discussed. The common issues for both these challenges were: the extent to which these crises are to be mitigated, how to adapt to these changes in a planetary scale and whether to incorporate business community in combatting these challenges. Climate change and energy challenge are inter-related, the need for a combined strategy was also stressed. How science and technology can aid to mitigate this challenge was also another issue to be discussed.

The first question posed to Osheroff. "Do you think climate change is a tough problem?" To Osheroff, this is a very serious issue. The notion of climate change is not an aberration of weather, it is happening real. Dire floods in different parts of the world are the effects of this change. But climate change is very tough to predict and model due to highly non-linear effects. He also stressed that politics plays a essential role in determining the course climate change. Ethanol production was a part of a Republican lobby, he exemplified. But Ivar Giaever remained skeptical of climate change. Is this really going to happen, he doubted. Thirty years age, there was a grave global concern about acid rains, but that threat was not real. Again in the early ninety's, it was reported that there are holes in the atmosphere, but still the UV rays has not been a problem still. His stance was not against global warming. He feels, people of India and China, the highest producers of green house gasses also do have the right to use cars and electricity as the most developed nations. He also stressed that ocean is a massive heat reservoir that would help to keep the effects of global warming low. To him, nuclear energy is the best solution for combating energy crisis, but solar and wind energy are not very promising solutions.
But Prof. Rubbia seemed very concerned with these challenges. He put forward the statistics, by the time, the world population has quadrupled, the energy consumption has increased by sixty times. Klitzing elucidated the essential role of the increase of living standards to these challenges. Such problems need to be combatted globally, international cooperation is pivotal. Steinberger also emphasized the need for a global accord, the collaboration of human societies.
Then the chair moved to Deisenhoffer for a possible solution to these challenges. His opinion was that we cannot wait for a pollution free alternative energy sources, we cannot wait for fusion. We must nd a solution with what we have. In view of the signicant divergence of opinions in the panel, we added that difference in ideas is essential to finding an effective solution. Chemistry Prof. Michel then highlighted the effectiveness of bio-energy in solving the energy crisis. The greenery is very inefficient to convert the energy of photons to chemical energy. While solar cells have been reported to have efficiency of 15%, the efficiency of tree leaves is not more than 0.3%. The Nature tried for three billion years, but did not succeeded in significant increase in this conversion eciency. Bio-fuel may be a viable option for the countries like Brazil, but not in countries with scarce forests.

According to Prof. Rubia, solar and nuclear energies are the practical alternatives for energy without CO2. But none of them are ready to replace hydrocarbon energy sources. At present, 15000 GW of solar energy available. Solar energy incident on Saudi Arabia is enough to quench the energy thirst of the whole world. Storage is a major issue for effectively tapping this potential. On the other hand, there are three fundamental issues to be solved for a worldwide dissemination of nuclear power: Nuclear waste management, prevention of proliferation of nuclear technology for terrorist purposes and shortage of U-235. Rubia pointed that Thorium could be a viable alternative to U-235. The world has abundant reserves of it and Thorium cannot be used for nuclear weapons. In view of the worldwide ebb in nuclear energy research, he suggested that research funds must be channeled to Thorium. But Steinberger disagreed in such optimism. He recalled that in 1955, three was a hype that fusion energy will be a technology within ten years which is still not one. So the research eorts seeking energy solutions should be multi-focused.

Afterwards Osheroff and Steinberger proposed the idea of solar energy farm in the desolate places like the Sahara, Giaver again played the role of a skeptic. In his view, solar energy is too costly to be viable and he pointed out that with the coal reserves in USA alone, the world can run for another ve hundred years.

The discussion ended with the prediction that within next ten years one Nobel prize will be awarded for nding a solution to energy crisis and climate change. To Osheroff, the solutions to these burning issues would be engineering ones and the role of politicians are also integral to these issues. In the last words, Michel disagreed with the idea that there will be a ground-breaking Nobel winning discovery or invention for solving to these issues, the technological solution is already here. It is a matter of policy and political goodwill.

Klitzing's Vision of Carbon as the Material of the Future

2008-12-19T04:38:00.002+06:00

Nature chose carbon as the material sustaining the life-blood in the earth. Scientists also envision carbon as the material for the future technologies. Klitzing in his talk on June 30, 2008 elucidated these points by highlighting the potentials of carbon based electronics. Diamond, carbon nanotube (CNT) and graphene all are made of same carbon atoms, their properties vary enormously. In the first part, he explained different types of carbon nanotube field effect transistors (CNTFET), such as vertical CNTFET, high aspect ratio nanostick networks etc as well as growth techniques of CNT. However, the preparation of graphene samples happened to be the most interesting information to me. Graphene are one atomic thick layer of carbons and there is still to be an ecient method for synthesizing graphenes. Klitzing explained the scotch tape method of graphene separation, which nothing else but just the separation of a graphene layer from a sample of graphite flake by attaching flake to a scotch-tape. Apart from the interest in graphene from the point of view of technology, graphenes are wonderful one dimensional system to observe different relativistic phenomena such as mass less Dirac Fermions.

The evening discussion session with Klitzing was a very interesting one. As I asked him about his projections on silicon being replaced by carbon nanotubes as the functional material for electronics, Klitzing became skeptical about the prospects of CNT for electronics. CNT devices has to be of orders of magnitude better performance than silicon for that. But there might be few off-stream applications for CNT, for example, as VLSI interconnects. He also shared the events that ensued after his discovery of quantum Hall effect. As he submitted a paper reporting his discovery of this effect to a journal, it got rejected. Afterwards, he happened to meet the editor of this journal in a conference and explained him in details all the discoveries. The editor was convinced and his paper got accepted. Such a great discovery was largely unanticipated in solid state physics in the 1970s . His discovery led to a fundamental connection between electrical resistance and the fundamental constants and is used worldwide for accurate calibration of resistances. It also led to a new determination of the fine structure constant. The 'von Klitzing constant', RK = 25812.807 ohm is named after him. Did he guess that he is going to get Nobel Prize? He indeed did. After this discovery, he was invited to give talks all over the world. And he joked saying that, the Nobel committee spent more money to investigate the impact of this discovery than the prize money.

He explained the role of fundamental physical constants as the basis for defining measurement units independently from space and time. Based on the physical constant, such as, h or G, the fundamental units of measurement are going to be redefined in 2011. His discovery is going to play a pivotal role in redefining the measurement units. He elucidated the relation between the measurement of mass and h. His suggestions for prospective researchers was like this, 'try to find the bumps on the curves.' A good researcher has a good feeling about which effects are vital for understanding the bumps on the curves and which ones to ignore. Being a pure experimentalist, he reiterated the necessity to be in contact with solid state theoreticians and vice versa too. Designs experiments cleverly is an important trait of a good experimentalist, he said. But being at the right place at the right time is the essential ingredient for ground breaking discoveries and inventions. He concluded by saying that in the 1970s the stage was set for his discovery; if he had not discovered quantum Hall effect, someone else would surely had done it soon.

Few minutes with Peter Gruenberg, the Father of Spintronics

2008-12-19T04:34:00.002+06:00

As an electrical engineer, the talk that interested I was interested in most most was the one by Peter Gruenberg, the 2007 Nobel Laureate in Physics, since his discovery of giant magnetoresistance (GMR) revolutionized the computer memory technology within just ten years and has led to exponential increase in the capacity of memory devices to the terra byte regime. GMR effect happens to be the basis of read heads of modern hard disk drives and nonvolatile magnetic random access memory (MRAM). GMR based memory is considered as the st commercial product of nanotechnology.

Gruenberg's talk began at 9.30 am on July 1. At the age of 69, senility has taken much of his physical strength, but his talk attested that his mind is still very active. In his slow speech, he described his inventions in a chronological order. Beginning with his 1986 invention of inter-layer exchange coupling and 1987 discovery of GMR, he briey described the concepts of current-in-plane (CIP) GMR, current-parallel-plane (CPP) GMR and tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR). In the conclusion he explained how these inventions led to the revolution in computer applications and upheld the vision of engineering the spin properties of materials enabling spintronics.

On the 4th of July, I had an opportunity of have an intimate discussion with Prof. Gruenberg. As soon as, he heard that I am an electrical engineer, he reminisced that after graduating as physicist he thought of studying electrical engineering. But as it required time and effort to bridge between these two different elds, he did not go forward in that direction. Although his research is mainly application oriented, he finds enjoyment in doing theoretical research. To him, experimental research and applications are inherently tied to the advancement of science. As he expressed his own ideas of the role of technology in developing countries, he gave the examples of solar energy technology, cellular communication technology having impact on the developing
countries. He also mentioned the research on these technologies at Juelich Research Lab, where he belongs to.

I finish this section with a popular hearsay about him. At Juelich, the only instances of his locomotion are seen when he goes in and out of the lab in the morning and evening respectively. All the other times, he sit sill in his table and occasionally looks down under his table in search of something mysterious.

The story of my camera

2008-07-03T12:42:00.003+06:00

For the frequent fliers, especially for the Europe bound fliers, Dubai airport has a great value as shopping center. But that proved completely wrong for me. I was to buy a battery for my antiquated analog PRIMA ZOOM85 camera. But to my great disappointment, the crew at the Dubai shopping mall informed me of that, for quite a while, all types of alkaline batteries have been banned in Dubai airport. And to my great frustration, I realized that I am to be without a camera during this once-in-a-lifetime experience with Nobel laureates at Lindau! With the rich in-flight entertainment (150 movies including few of the 2007 releases), the four hour journey from Dhaka starting at 10.30am on 27 January was not below my expectations. The shopping experience made me completely clueless. However this is not the first time I felt stupid during this trip.

After a three and half hour transit at Dubai we got into the plane. The ac in the plane was not working. So the plane delayed for one and half hour in Dubai. The temperature outside was around 35 degrees Celsius and we felt like burning onboard the aircraft. As the crew corrected the fault, the plane took off and we found that the in-flight entertainment in this plane is much worse than the earlier one. It had a only 5 movies to select from, the Dhaka-Dubai flight had 150!

After a tiresome fourteen hour journey we reached Munich at 10.50pm (Munich time). The scheduled arrival time was 8.55pm. So it was long one and half hour waiting at Munich airport for Sumit vi, whom I would like to introduce to you now. Sumit vi (full name Sumit Paul) is an electrical engineering graduate (class of 2005) from BUET and currently a PhD student at Germany. He has been here for last two years and has been the focal point for all the Bangladeshi students. Tacit and ever-smiling Sumit vi is. We got to his uncle’s place. After a good dinner we got to sleep at .

The next morning we visited a few places in Munich, Olympic stadium and the BMW showroom. Well I did not know, BMW originated in Munich (Bayern Munchen Wolkswagen). Afterwards we had a very good lunch at the Shurbahar, a Bangladeshi owned Indian hotel in Munich. It was fun indeed!

I would finish this blog with the final unfortunate twist in my luck. To my short-lived ecstasy, I found an electronics shop at the Munich train station, which sold batteries for my age-old camera. I immediately bought the battery along with two films. It cost 15 euro in total (104 times 15 = 1560 tk). I put the battery in the camera. And I realized it is actually my camera that is out of order. This time bad luck was financially frustrating too!

Lindau, Germany, 2 July

Ivar Giaever: The Mechanical Engineer Turned Physicist

2008-07-01T21:12:00.013+06:00

I was a bit remorsed when I met a few participants of this Lindau meeting on the first day (28 July 2008). Most of them were theoretical physicists (quantum field theory stuffs, !!$?!+*?) and sometimes they tended to look down even upon solid state physics as sub par members of physics community. Gross, the man with a cigar in his photo, the Nobel laureate of 2004 seemed the man of everyone. Myself being an electrical engineer felt being selected for this program mistakenly by the Lindau council. It was no place for me. But as Ivar Giaever, Nobel Laureate of 1973, delivered his lecture I felt very dignified. By training, Giaver was a mechanical engineer!

Giaever is a very hilarious man. He is a Norwegian, and there are no participants from Norway. So he is not happy. He started his story of invention, the discovery of superconducting tunneling. Having graduated in 1952 from the Norwegian Institute of Technology as a mechanical engineer, he went to Canada and finally joined General Electric Company in USA. He has an interesting story on his getting the job at GE. Unlike in the US grading system, in Norweigian grading system the best grade is 1.0 and the worst is 6.0 and 4.0 is barely passing. He got 4.0 in both mathematics and physics in undergraduate! Luck turned on him and the interview committee at GE commented on his grade like this, ‘I see, you are very good in mathematics and physics, you got 4.0 in both.’ Giaever remembers that day, `Haven’t I been bad in mathematics and physics, there would be no Nobel prize for me.’ His works began with John Fischer at GE and he was asked to do experiments on tunneling phenomena in thin films. For Giaever, the classical mechanical engineer, how small balls like electron can pass through a wall without damaging the wall or itself! It was an enigma to him. He then went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy to study physics in 1958 where he had his first lessons on quantum mechanics and superconductivity. He finished his PhD in 1964. It was the class on superconductivity by Professor Huntington at RPI, when he started to get his miracle ideas. Blending his understanding of tunneling with the new gained knowledge on superconductivity he could think of an experiment to prove or disprove the existence of energy gap in superconductors, which was very crucial for the correctness of the new Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory of superconductivity. In a funny manner, he told that it is usually a dream to prove a famous theory wrong. Surpassing all speculations, their experiment proved the existence of energy gap in superconductors and hence the BCS theory. He felt like a physicist for the first time. He got his Nobel prize in 1973 along with Leo Esaki and Brian D. Josephson.

He shared with us some interesting events in his life. He wrote a letter to Bardeen (Nobel prize in physics in 1956 for solid state transistor and in 1972 for BCS theory) asking him about the Nobel prize awarding ceremony. Bardeen replied like this,

Dear Ivar,

The first time I got the Nobel prize, I did not take my family. I regretted that. Hence the second time, I went with my family. ….
So Giaever took his family to the Nobel ceremony.

About Josephson effect, he also did the same experiment. But he missed to notice the effect. In the last 35 years he has been asked many times whether he felt bad about it. `The answer is clearly no, because to make an experimental discovery it is not enough to observe something, one must also realize the significance of the observation, and in this instance I was not even close,’ Ivar answered.

He believes luck is the necessary ingredient for scientific discovery. But discoveries come only to prepared minds. His advice to the students was that, ‘Always go to the classes. You never know what you might miss and the pay offs might be sometimes very big.’ His idea of the experiement, indeed, came during Prof. Huntington’s class. As doing Nobel quality research, he has given 8 advices.
1. Be curious
2. Be competitive. Physicists are competitive.
3. Be creative.
4. Be stubborn. In his view, physicists are not nice people, they are rude. (But Laureate Philip D. Hall (2005) disagreed on the issue of physicists’ being not nice in the next session.)
5. Be self confident.
6. Be skeptical.
7. Be patient.
8. Be LUCKY!

The most inspiring part of his lecture for me, you do not need to be an expert to make scientific discovery. Often a newcomer to a field has a great advantage because he is ignorant and does not know all the complicated reasons why a particular experiment should not be attempted. He was once ignorant about the inappropriateness of the use of copper contacts to superconductors which, actually, made him a step forward. After him, everyone started to use copper as contacts to superconductors.

At last he presented a calculation the probability of getting a Nobel prize if we lived in USA.

1. There are 40000 physicists in USA.
2. On average each year one American scientist gets a Nobel prize in physics.
3. The probability of not getting the Nobel prize = 1 – 1/40000 = 39999/40000.
4. Average year of active research of a physicist in USA= 40 years
5. The probability of not getting the Nobel prize in life time = (39999/40000)^40=0.999.
6. The probability of getting one Nobel prize = 1 – 0.999 =1/1000

To Giaever, `That is, indeed, better than odds of winning in Lotto!’

Good luck all. I am very happy to meet an engineer Nobel Laureate who started quantum mechanics at the age of 29. Greats inspiration for us, the people with BS in engineering.

We will soon update you on our experiences with other laureates.

1 July 2008

Opening ceremony, chocolate science and a fact based world view.

2008-06-30T22:56:00.002+06:00

Devil itself provokes us to indulge ourselves into the mischievous world of chocolates. But as I attended the opening ceremony of the 58th meeting of Laureates in Physics, this idea seemed to change. Chocolate science is, in fact, advancing the state-of-the-art science and technology. Pamela Mars Wright, one of the benefactors of the famous chocolate company, Mars Inc., which has been a close collaborator with this Lindau meeting, informed all the audience of their big R&D project across the globe. One of the research that intrigues me is their work on thin film photonic structures with which they intend to control the color of their m&m gems without using artificial color.

The opening ceremony was grand. The composition of theramin by Kavina, the most celebrated performer of theramin in the world and piano by Kouzmenko filled the air with grandeur and made the air heavy. Countess Sonja Bernadotte delivered her opening message and introduced to us the laureates, at first Smoot (2006), Grunberg (2007) who are attending the meeting for the first time.

The concluding lecture by Prof. Rosling of Korolinska Institute, Stockholm was the most pleasant experience of the day. About the world view, we are very much driven by the presumption, not by facts. In a very jolly manner, he pointed out how ignorant we are about the current world situation. He drew an example. The best of his Swedish students scored an average 1.8/5 in multiple choice quiz he designed on the child mortality rate. Well, a group of Chimpanzees would score an 2.5 /5 based on equal probability for each answer. The professors scored better than students, 2.4/5 still worse than the Chimpanzees. He calls this predetermined ignorance. He did drew analogy of country taxonomy. We used to categorize countries into developed and developing countries. But this division is based on the assumption that there is a big gap in the economic indicators of this groups of countries. But actually he refered the curves like life expectancy vs GDP which clearly shows that unlike 1950s all the countries are uniformly distributed in this graph. The source of this ignorance, is it a propaganda? He did not indictae that directly. One of his concluding remarks were this, the corporate sector has a better understanding of the world than the academic sector. Why? Because they find out the best places to invest.

Realizing a dream

2008-06-26T15:37:00.005+06:00

Hi all!

Welcome all to the first blog by the Bangladeshi participants of the 58th Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates - dedicated to physics (29 June - 4 July 2008, http://www.lindau-nobel.de). We will start our journey for Lindau tomorrow.

Notification of our acceptance by the Lindau Council came in mid-April 2008. Over-excited we were! However, very soon travel expenses loomed a dark cloud over our prospects of attending the meeting, we emitted a large numbers of photons and phonons of anxiety and got down from the excited state to somewhere below the ground state. Imminent final year exam, scheduled to start from June 15 2008 of Omer and Mainul added to our hopelessness. All these issues have been sorted out very conveniently. Under the patronage of Prof. A. Karim, North American Bangladeshi Islamic Council (NABIC) came forward to sponsor for two of us. Bangladesh Academy of Sciences has also agreed to sponsor the remaining one. Omer and Mainul also have no exams scheduled during the trip. Obtaining German visa was also a very smooth experience for us. En-route to Lindau, Bangladeshis at Munich will provide local hospitality. We soon introduce them to you.

We thank all the initiators of this program in Bangladesh. Thanks to Bangladesh Academy of Sciences for patronizing this event,to NABIC for supporting us, to Prothom Alo for providing superb media coverage. And lastly our deepest condolences for Fattah sir. Without him, we would not have this grand opportunity.

Twenty-five Nobel laureates including four chemistry laureates and one medicine/physiology laureate would attend the meeting. Here is the list of Nobel laureates along with their Nobel prize citations.

1.Prof. Dr. Theodor W. Hänsch -2005, "for contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"

2.Prof. Dr. Peter Grünberg -2007, "for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance"

3.Prof. Dr. Ivar Giaever -1973, "for experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively"

4.Prof. Dr. Klaus von Klitzing-1985, "for the discovery of the quantized Hall effect"

5.Prof. Dr. William D. Phillips -1997, "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light"

6.Prof. Dr. John L. Hall -2005, "for contributions to the development of laser-based precision spectroscopy, including the optical frequency comb technique"

7.Prof. Johann Deisenhofer [Chemistry Nobel Prize]-1988
8.Prof. Dr. Robert Huber [Chemistry Nobel Prize]-1988
9.Prof. Dr. Hartmut Michel [Chemistry Nobel Prize]-1988, "for the determination of the three-dimensional structure of a photosynthetic reaction centre"

10.Prof. Dr. James Watson Cronin -1980, "for the discovery of violations of fundamental symmetry principles in the decay of neutral K-mesons"

11.Prof. Dr. Riccardo Giacconi-2002,"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"

12.Prof. Dr. George F. Smoot -2006, "for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation"

13.Prof. Dr. Martinus.J.G. Veltman -1999, "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"

14.Prof. Dr. David Gross -2004, "for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction"

15.Prof. Dr. Donald A. Glaser -1960, "for the invention of the bubble chamber"

16.Prof. Dr. Nicolaas Bloembergen-1981, "for their contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy

17.Prof. Dr. Roy J. Glauber -2005, "for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence"

18.Prof. Dr. Douglas D. Osheroff -1996, "for discovery of superfluidity in helium-3"

19. Prof. Dr. Brian D. Josephson -1973,"for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier, in particular those phenomena which are generally known as the Josephson effects"

20.Prof. Dr. Gerardus ´t Hooft -1999, "for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions in physics"

21. Prof. Dr.Jack Steinberger-1988, "for the neutrino beam method and the demonstration of the doublet structure of the leptons through the discovery of the muon neutrino"

22.Prof. Dr. Arber Werner -The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1978, "for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics"

23.Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Eigen Manfred -The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1967, "for studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equlibrium by means of very short pulses of energy"

24.Prof. Rubia -1984, "for decisive contributions to the large project, which led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction"

We would start our journey to meet the Nobel laureates tomorrow-with our hearts pounding with excitement, with our eyes opalescent, with our souls overjoyed. We would try to update you on this meeting. Keep an eye on this blog.

Thanks all.

-Asif,Omer, Mainul

Congratulations

2008-04-20T11:06:00.004+06:00

I am taking this opportunity to introduce 3 of our young reseracher who has been selected for this year Lindau Nobeld Conference 2008.

Here are three

1. Asif Islam Khan,
Lecturer
EEE Department, BUET

2.Omer Sampad 4th year, Dept of Physics
University of Dhaka.

3. Mainul Hossain 4th year
Dept of Applied Physics,Electronics & Communication Engineering [APECE]
University of Dhaka.

You all know that the first conference of this year is on Physics.

Congratulations Asif, Sampad and Mainul.

Lindau Nobel Laurete Meeting Participant Alumni.

Evaluation report for the 57th Meeting of Nobel Laureates

2007-11-21T10:24:00.001+06:00

Finally, the evaluation report for the 57th Meeting of Nobel Laureates is finished.
It is published on our website and gives a comprehensive overview over this year?s
meeting. The report contains statements with pictures of young researchers and the
Nobel Laureates, pictures from events during the meeting, the results of the
evaluation process, and a lot of information about the benefactors and donors that have madepossible this Lindau Dialogue. Statements show what the Lindau Meetings mean to young researchers and their future careers. Together with the results of our survey they confirm that we are on the right track and encourage the Lindau Council and Foundation to move forward.

Read the report here:
http://www.lindau-nobel.de/content/section/2/17/

Best regards,
Christian Rapp

Lindau Nobel 2007 participants from Bangladesh

2007-09-28T18:58:00.000+06:00

Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting for Physiology and Medicine, Germany, 2007

Discussion Session with the Laureates

2007-09-28T17:57:00.000+06:00

Opening Ceremony at Inselhalle

2007-09-28T17:55:00.000+06:00

Particant Laureates

2007-09-28T11:47:00.000+06:00

What they are listening? Yes that was an amazing moment for them..!!

2007-09-28T11:44:00.000+06:00

Dont miss these at Lindau !!!

2007-09-28T11:42:00.000+06:00

Bravarian Port mark and German Flag at Lindau 2007

2007-09-28T11:40:00.000+06:00

Young Bangladeshi Scientists meet Nobel Laureates at Lindau Germany

2007-07-21T20:18:00.000+06:00

Prof. Ahmad Islam (Retd.)

Austin, USA, GNOBB.ORG homepage report

July 20, ’07. Led by Prof. Zafar Iqbal at Shah Jalal university S&T (SUST), six young Bangladeshi scientists in the filed of biology, namely, Minhaz Ahmed, Ms. Jakia Amin, Ms. Sutapa Barua, Khademul Islam, Touhidul Islam and Ms. Ayshea Sania attended the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting July 1 through 6. This is the first time that young Bangladeshi scientists got this unique opportunity to be a part of this assembly of 560 young scientists from 63 countries. Fourt een Nobel Laureates addressed this unique gathering of young scientists in the field of physiology and medicine in Lindau, Germany situated on the shore of Constance. The awe-inspiring talks and exposure to their company have sparked the imagination of the young scientists and strengthened their determination to follow the footsteps of Nobel Laureates in becoming future leaders in their respective areas of specialization. While we expect that these extremely talented Bangladeshi young men and women scientists to engage themselves deep in their research projects, and carryout cutting edge researches, we request the government machinery to provide them all modern basic equipment necessary for such high quality original work so that they remain within the country instead of migrating to a foreign soil.

Our favourite Fattah sir and Zafar sir in a moment!!!!

2007-07-20T23:16:00.000+06:00

We are lucky to get Prof. Zafar Sir among us!!!

2007-07-20T23:14:00.000+06:00

Minhaz with the academic ambassador
Prof. M. Zafar Iqbal..

Prof. Z. Iqbal along with an organizer of Lindau Meeting

2007-07-20T23:13:00.000+06:00

Some Bangaldeshi's with some Indian participants at Inselhalle, Lindau

2007-07-20T23:06:00.001+06:00

Khademul Islam, A german student and Minhaz at Mainau Island, Lindau

2007-07-20T23:05:00.000+06:00

We were in a Dinner @ Thai restaurent (Lindau, Germany)

2007-07-20T23:03:00.000+06:00

UBS concert !!! .....it was great....

2007-07-20T22:34:00.000+06:00

You all know him !!!

2007-07-20T22:30:00.000+06:00

Once upon a time in PARIS bangla restaurent !!

2007-07-20T22:27:00.000+06:00

Sutapa along with Prof. Hunt

2007-07-20T22:26:00.000+06:00

Khadem along with Hartwel

2007-07-20T22:25:00.000+06:00

We together.....

2007-07-20T22:24:00.000+06:00

Touhid along with Laureate Hartwell

2007-07-20T22:22:00.001+06:00

(Laureate Craig Mello delivers his opening address)

2007-07-20T21:54:00.000+06:00

First participation of young Bangladeshi talents @ Lindau, Germany 2007

2007-07-20T21:04:00.000+06:00

Minhaz Uddin Ahmed

Ph.D. Student, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST)
BSc and MS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka, (2000-2001)

The 57th Meeting of Nobel Laureates took place from July 2nd to July 6th, 2007 in Lindau on Lake Constance, Germany, where few young Bangladeshi talents actively participated in that event. At the invitation of the president of the council for the Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, 17 Nobel Laureates including 6 in Chemistry travelled to Lake constance to discuss current scientific topics with 568 students from 64 countries or regions. Scientific talks, intimate discussions on specialist theme and personal meetings formed the focal point of the conference. The up-and-coming scientists and Nobel Laureates made intensive use of the 13 talks, related seminars and round-table discussions. Get together with all the conference participants, the concert given by the UBS Verbier Festival Orchestra, and the boat trip to the Island of Mainau offered opportunities for personal dialogue. The idea behind this meeting of being a “window to the world” and a venue for establishing networks reaching far beyond the five days on Lindau, Germany. To the best of our observation and knowledge, we believe that it was Mr. A. Fattah’s (former teacher of DU and retired IAEA scientist) initiative which helped us to look forward through the window to the world. He was quite successful to make a smooth bridge between Bangladesh Academy of Science (BAS) and Lindau Nobel Laureate Council and ultimately between Nobel Laureates and the young talents of Bangladesh.

[Pic:-The meeting Place: Lindau, Germany]

Laureates:

The Nobel Laureates transform the meetings on Lake Constance into a platform for scientific excellence. Their participation underlines the importance of the Lindau Meeting in the eyes of science world. Participants Nobel Laureates were as follows:
Prof. Dr. Arber, Werner, Switzerland; Prof. Dr. Blobel, Günter, USA; Prof. Dr. Ciechanover, Aaron, Israel; Prof. Dr. Eigen, Manfred Germany; Prof. Dr. Fischer, Edmond USA; Prof. Dr. Hartwell, Leland USA; Prof. Dr. Hershko, Avram Israel; Prof. Dr. Huber, Robert Germany; Prof. Dr. Hunt, Timothy United Kingdom; Prof. Dr. Mello, Craig C. USA; Prof. Dr. Michel, Hartmut Germany; Prof. Dr. Murad, Ferid USA; Prof. Dr. Neher, Erwin Germany; Prof. Dr. Nüsslein-Vollhard, Christiane Germany; Prof. Dr. Roberts, Richard USA; Prof. Dr. Sakmann, Bert Germany; Prof. Dr. Walker, Sir John United Kingdom ; Prof. Dr. Zinkernagel, Rolf Switzerland.

Young researchers and their selection criteria:

All 568 participants from 64 countries or regions had successfully completed an international, multi-stage selection process, during the course of which the best young scientists of tomorrow were chosen from 20,000 applications. Numerous universities, foundations and international research organizations worldwide had nominated these extremely talented young people. Participants were selected in a two-state process. First of all, the partners of the Lindau Council make a pre-selection from among the interested young scientists. To achieve this, the council has created a binding and transparent framework for all nominating institutions with the selection criteria that are to be applied globally.
This year, hundreds of Bangladeshis from all over the world applied through the Lindau-Bangladesh (www.lindau-bangladesh.org) home page and local selection bodies choose only ten talent young candidates. At last, the final selection was made centrally by the Lindau Nobel Laureate Council’s review panel situated at Lindau, Germany. Among others, those six young scientists with Bangladeshi Nationality discussed their own research projects in personal conversations with the authorities in their fields or get invaluable tips for their own scientific careers.

Program:

Where is Lindau?: Lindau is a German city and an island in the eastern part of the Lake Constance, the Bodensee. The historic city of Lindau is located on the 0.68 km² island which is connected with the mainland by a bridge and a railway dam. Lindau is located near where the three borders of Austria, Germany and Switzerland meet. It is nestled under the mountain Pfänder of the Alps in the lake. Due to its historic medieval city center and the pleasant location in Lake Constance, Lindau is a popular place for sightseeing tours and holidays. Annually a meeting of Nobel Prize Winners and a congress of medical physics is held in the city.

Overview of the 57th Annual MeetingJuly 1-6, 2007, first ever participants from Bangladesh
Since 1951, Nobel Laureates in physiology or medicine, chemistry and physics convene annually in Lindau, Germany, to have open and informal meetings with students and young researchers.
The 2007 meeting was held from July 2-6 and focused on physiology or medicine. During the meeting, the Laureates lecture on the topics of their choice related to physiology or medicine in the mornings and participate in less formal small group discussions with the students in the afternoons and some evenings. In addition to this valuable interaction, the participants enjoy the picturesque island city of Lindau, which is located at the eastern end of Lake Constance, just north of the Swiss Alps. Located at the border of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, the medieval city is rich in central European culture.

Saturday, July 30

Upon arrival at Frankfurt Airport, all Bangladeshi participants who came from Japan collected their luggage and went to the Frankfurt flugafen station to get the long distance train. Along the way, they tried to catch up on their sleep, read, or enjoy views of the German countryside. Closer to Lindau, our travel to another country suddenly became real when the Alps came into view. Sutapa came alone from the USA and landed at local airport and then came directly to the hotel. Participants from Bangladesh arrived on the following day before the due session for registration.
Once in Lindau, we checked into the hotels — the Hotel Garni Viktoria, the Hotel Vis a Vis and Hotel Gusthaf Angel and then began to explore our new surroundings, discovering the location of the meeting, restaurants, and points of interest.

Opening Ceremony: July 1

We started our day with an overview of the day’s upcoming events. The students and young researchers could register for the meeting at their own time and then spent few hours prior to the opening ceremony while explored the historical buildings, harbor and walking on the island of landau. Some students took train to visit Austria which was just ten minutes by train without any border. Some students also rented bicycles and had their lunch there.
Late afternoon, we dressed up for the Opening Ceremony of the 57th Meeting of Nobel Laureates and Graduate Students. This was for the first time that brought all 568 students from 64 countries and regions at the Inselhalle conference center. Countess Sonja Bernadotte officially opened the meeting wearing her fashionable hat. While she was on the dais, she introduced the attending laureates and also presented the Lennart Bernadotte Medal to Michael Sohlman, executive director of the Nobel foundation from Sweden.
Petra Meier to Bernd-Seidl, the Mayor of Lindau, also welcomed the students, remarking on the importance of science to the world population. A panel discussion on Science and Humanities was also followed, presented by Professor Otfried Höffe of Eberhard-Karls University in Tübingen, Germany; Dr. Fotis Kafatos, President and Chairman of the Scientific Council of the European Research Council in Brussels, Belgium; Lord Rees of Ludlow, President of the Royal Society of London; and Professor Peter Strohschneider, Chairperson of the German Science Council of Cologne, Germany. The ceremony ended with Countess Bettina and Count Björn presenting flowers to the young musicians who provided the classical musical interludes to the ceremony.
Later that evening, the students gathered at the tent which was next to the Inselhalle for a networking meeting attended by most of the students from other delegations. Bangladeshi students interacted with the international students for a stimulating evening of conversation about culture, education, and science in different countries. Some other students along with their academic ambassadors gathered other restaurants which were close to Inselhalle.

Lectures and Meetings: July 2

After a wholehearted breakfast buffet at the German hotels, the students gathered at the Inselhalle for the opening session of the 57th Meeting.
The first talk of the morning was given by Craig Mello who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2006. He presented a compelling talk on "RNAi and the Development of C. elegans" or "How a Worm Won 5 Nobel Prizes in Medicine." In his remarks, he deduced his belief that science should be conducted in an atmosphere of openness and trust and that
communication with collaborators is very crucial.

Nobel winner in 1998, Prof. Ferid Murad, discussed the sources and benefits of nitric oxide in his talk, "Nitric Oxide as a Messenger Molecule and its Role in Drug Development."
Hartmut Michel, winner of the prize in chemistry in 1988, concluded the morning lectures with his topic on Biofuels – Sense or Nonsense.
After lunch the students and young researchers were asked to join for guided city tour in the rainy atmosphere!
After that at around 15:00 hrs the students convened in small groups for focused discussions with the laureates who had given the morning program in addition the Nobel Laureates who were specially invited. The evening program brought all students and laureates together for an evening of socializing and dancing. Laureates were seated at the centers of long tables with students around them. During the buffet dinner, students had unlimited access to the laureates at their tables. This social get-together was welcomed by Countess Sonja Bernadotte and Prof. Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, Minister of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

(I along with Prof. Manfred Eigen, Germany, Noble Laureates in Chemistry 1967)

The highlight of the evening was the traditional polonaise during which women and men paired up at random, promenaded across the dance floor, and finished with a waltz. Later the music became more modern and the dancing faster as students from all countries and laureates enjoyed a different kind of communication.

Lectures and Meetings: July 3

The first talk of the morning was given by Sir Timothy Hunt who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2001 along with Leland H. Hartwell and Sir Paul M. Nurse. He delivered a lively talk on "The Cell Cycle and Cancer." As it was the second day of the meeting, the students and young researchers were much adept with the purpose of the meeting and tried to take their seats and positions quite early with enthusiasm to listen the some more interesting talks.Prof. Hunt said, “My own involvement in this field came about by accident in the early 1980s while I was trying to understand the control of protein synthesis in sea urchin eggs, and I discovered the cyclins, translationally regulated proteins that undergo rapid periodic destruction as fertilized eggs of sea urchins and clams divide to form embryos. The cyclins eventually proved to be the activating subunits of a protein kinase that can be thought of as the master regulator of the cell cycle and today we understand this regulation in very considerable depth and detail, although many deep mysteries remain”. He talked about how we know what we know and what we'd like to know and how understanding the control of the cell cycle relates to the all-important subject of understanding and treating cancer.

Edmond Fischer, Nobel winner in 2001, delivered his talk "Protein Crosstalk in Cell Signaling." He emphasized on cellular regulation by tyrosine phosphorylation which has been directly implicated in cell growth, differentiation and transformation.
After a short break, the students were treated to a very engaging and witty roundtable discussion consisting of Laureates Günter Blobel, Leland Hartwell, Sir Timothy Hunt, and Craig Mello. The topic was "Basic Science in Molecular Medicine." After some brief comments by the Laureates, the group entertained questions from the audience that ranged from social issues in medicine to details about the Laureates’ research.
Following the morning session, the U.S. participants lead by Dr. Hirsch hosted a lunch at the Hotel Stift with participants from India and Bangladesh.

After lunch, the students again gathered at the Inselhalle for a “Science Bazaar” which was arranged for the first time in this meeting. All 17 of the attending Laureates were stationed around the auditorium with a small group of chairs. Students were invited to stop at as many Laureate stations as they chose to ask questions or exchange ideas in the true spirit of a bazaar.

Our academic ambassador Prof. Dr. Zafar Iqbal and A. Fattah sir invited us to join a dinner. We choose a restaurant close to Inselhalle. Our first official discussion were animated and lasted for couple of hours, covered with a wide array of topics. Besides, different hotels were rushed by the Lindau meeting participants all over the island.

Lectures and Meetings: July 4

This day’s session was opened with a talk entitled “Grey Matter(s)" by Bert Sakmann, winner of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1991. This was followed by a presentation given by Avram Hershko, Nobel winner in 2004 for chemistry.
Werner Arber, winner in 1978, chose the topic “Darwinian Evolution as Understood by Scientists of the 21st Century.” In his speech, elements to a molecular theory of Darwinien evolution were presented. He said, biological evolution is driven by the availability of genetic variants in populations. The occasional generation of genetic variants was brought about by cooperative actions of products of evolution genes and of non-genetic elements. He also discussed that three qualitatively different natural strategies (local sequence change, intragenomic rearrangement of DNA segments, and DNA acquisition by horizontal gene transfer) contribute each with a few specific mechanisms to the overall mutagenesis.
Additional presentations were made by Günter Blobel (physiology or medicine, 1999), who talked on “Nucleo-cytoplasmic Traffic,” and Robert Huber (chemistry, 1988) on “Proteolysis and its Regulation, A Molecular Basis.”
The afternoon session again consisted of small-group scientific discussions hosted by the morning speakers at the Inselhalle and Altes Rathaus. Then all students were provided dinner in the Inselhalle tent but still some could strike out on their own to take advantage of the many restaurants on the island.
At around 20 hrs, special concert at the city Theatre by the UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra was arranges, where the soloist was Maestro Gabor Takacs-Nagy. Prof. Zafar Iqbal sir said, it was difficult to determine when to clap to appreciate the touching music!

Lectures and Meetings: July 5

The morning session began with a presentation by Laureate Richard Roberts (physiology or medicine, 1993) who spoke on “Why I Love Microbes.” Following several questions to Roberts from the audience, Laureate Aaron Ciehanover (chemistry, 2004) spoke on “The Dynamics of Our Proteins: From Basic Mechanisms onto the Patient Bed.”
After a short break, Rolf Zinkernagel (physiology or medicine, 1996) presented his talk, “Why Do We Not Have a Vaccine for TB or HIV Yet?”
To close out the morning session, five of the Laureates participated on a roundtable panel on the subject “Medical Sciences and Society.” Participants were Edmond Fischer, Avram Hershko, Ferid Murad, Erwin Neher, and Richard Roberts.
After lunch, scientific discussion in individual groups was held between Nobel Laureates and Young researchers at the Inselhalle and Altes Rathaus. Then all students were provided dinner in the Inselhalle tent but still some could take advantage to take food in the island’s fine restaurants.
We then gathered on a Thai restaurant to eat some curries with our academic ambassador and Fattah sir. We discussed how to improve further in the participation of Lindau Meeting in future, specially how to motivate more young scientists, sponsors and institutes for their active participations. In this meeting, we decided how to circular the next meeting program for Economists and Physicists. The dinner concluded with some nice ideas from all pariticipants.
Final day: Boat trip to the Isle of Mainau
At the early morning, almost all participants along with Nobel laureates were guided for the boat trip. We departed at around 8 am from Lindau harbor and reached at Isle of Mainau after two and half hour journey. During boat trip interaction with laureates was so informal and we listened intently their opinions and suggestions. Some young researchers were seen to involve with last-minute exchange before rushing off to the Mainau Island.

Quotes from the Meeting: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****~~~~~

Lindau Comes right after Stockholm-------- Prof Dr. Wolfgang Schurer Chairman, Foundation of Lindau Nobel Prize winners meetings at Lake Constance, Germany
A theory can be proved by experiment; but no path leads from experiment to the birth of a theory. ---------Manfred Eigen, Nobel Prize Winner on Chemistry, 1967
A worm got five Nobel Prizes!!!, yes it is C. elecgans which helped researchers around the world to work extensively and being awarded. ------------ Craig C. Mellow, Nobel Prize Winner on Physiology or Medicine, 2006

Collaboration; it’s almost like a love affair. ----Sir Timothy Hunt, Nobel Prize winner on Physiology or Medicine, 2001

Funding should be provided to young, energetic and enthusiastic scientist rather than old fellows who even cannot write good grant proposal.------- Richard J Roberts, Nobel Prize winner on Physiology or Medicine, 1993

Beautiful ideas killed by ugly facts. ----------Gunter Blobel, Nobel Prize winner on Physiology or Medicine, 1999

Mental diseases are coming up as a great challenge for you. ---------- Gunter Blobel, Nobel Prize winner on Physiology or Medicine, 1999

Companies usually manufacture drugs which cannot cure completely.----------- Richard J Roberts, Nobel Prize winner on Physiology or Medicine, 1993

I know of no other meeting in the world where leading scientists spend so much time to interact with students, there are many conferences organized around science, but this one organizes science around interaction.------ Roland Hirsch, Department of Energy, who leads the US delegation to Lindau for the eighth time in 2007

(Pic:-Once in a life-time, first ever participants from Bangladesh, from top left; Khademul Islam, Prof. M. Zafar Iqbal (as an academic ambassador), Minhaz Uddin Ahmed, SM Touhidul Islam and A. Fattah (Organizer and Media representative for Bangladesh); from bottom left, Jakia Amin, Ayesha Sania and Sutapa Barua)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Great encounter between Nobel Laureates and young scientists

2007-07-20T20:59:00.000+06:00

Sutapa Barua, back from Lindau, Germany

I am honoured to be nominated as one of the young scientists from Bangladesh in the 57th Physiology/Medicine meeting in 2007. The meeting was not completely a scientific meeting rather it was an interactive meeting to know about the worldwide scientists at a personal level. This was the first time when Bangladesh was represented by six selected students. It was an amazing experience to me to interact with the present and future scientific researchers from all over the world. I came from the meeting with added excitement for my research, communication and networking skills that will aid me in the future. Here I am trying to highlight the important perspectives of our six days meeting with the Nobel Laureates and international students.July 1st, 2007, Sunday We, the six Bangladeshi students, registered for the meeting in the morning. Then we joined the meeting at 4:00 pm local time. Dr. Md. Zafar Iqbal and A. Fattah were there. Mr. Fattah introduced us to the scientists from different countries. We talked with them as well as some young researchers from India, USA, London, Sweden and many other countries. The meeting was opened at 4:00 pm local time with the introductory lecture from the President of the Council, Countess Sonja Bernadotte. She thanked 17 Nobel Laureates and 560 young researchers from 62 different countries who joined the meeting. She did not forget to mention that this year about half of the young researchers were women. As soon as she said that, everybody in that big hall clapped for a minute. She acknowledged the people who contributed a lot to arrange this meeting. She awarded Lennart-Bernadotte-Medal to Michael Sohlman, Executive director of the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden. There was a panel discussion among Prof. Dr. h.c. Otfried Höffe (Eberhard-Karls-University, Germany), Prof. Dr. Fotis C. Kafatos (FMRS, President and Chairman of Scientific Council of the European Research Council, Brussels), Professor the Lord Rees of Ludlow (FRS, President of the Royal Society, London), Prof. Dr. Peter Strohschneider (Chairperson of the German Scientific Council, Cologne, Gremany) about the difference between natural and cultural sciences. There were some interesting points in the distinction between these two sciences. One important point was that natural science was independent of human but cultural science was totally created by human. This seemed to me very interesting. A cultural scientist can utilise his intelligence in any sector of cultural sciences and bring the message to general public who have no scientific background. At night we had a dinner in a tent with other students. That was a fun. We talked with some Indian students there who were studying medical sciences in India. We shared our experiences and insights of how we can take our researches and knowledge to the society.July 2nd, 2007, MondayThe whole day was rainy. In the morning, three Nobel Laureates, Dr.s Craig Mello (Physiology/ Medicine, 2006), Ferid Murad (Physiology/ Medicine, 1998) and Hartmut Michel (Chemistry, 1988) presented their works. Dr. Mello presented RNA silencing and interference while Dr. Murad talked about the role of nitric oxide in preventing disease like cancer and Dr. Michel said about the future of biofuels.After the morning session, we had a nice city trip with a German lady, Heidi Achmann. She showed us the oldest building in the city, oldest building used for cultural activities in this city, a building that was used only by unmarried women, a lighthouse which is the centre point of France, Germany and Netherland and a lot of idols representing historical meanings. In the evening, we joined a dinner with the Laureates. It was a great opportunity to talk and take pictures with the Laureates. Besides students had the chance to dance with the Laureates with the rhythm of drum by a local Band group. Students had questions like how the Nobel Laureates started their experiments for which they won the prize. Most of them thought that they found the experiment accidentally. In that dinner party, I talked with Dr. Timothy Hunt who achieved the Nobel Prize for cell cycle regulation experiment. I asked him if I would like to start the similar kind of experiment in Bangladesh, what my approach should be. He said that since developing countries do not have enough resources and equipment, it is kind of difficult to do cell cycle experiments in Bangladesh. So we should start thinking of how we can utilise reagents that are available in Bangladesh rather than buying chemicals from outside which could be very expensive. Khademul invited him to Bangladesh to stimulate our young researchers in the country. Dr. Hunt said he would be willing to that if any of the participants would contact with him by email.Talking with these topmost researchers in the world, it seemed to me that the Laureates were very normal social being like us but they are smarter than us in sense of intelligence and wisdom. For example, while I was talking with Dr. Hunt, it was announced from the stage addressing the Nobel Laureates that they were invited to dance with young scientific researchers. Dr. Hunt acted like he was shivered hearing the announcement and then he said 'may be I should go under the table so that I can hide myself'- that was funny. July 3rd, 2007, TuesdayOn this day, we started with the lecture from Dr. Tim Hunt (Physiology/ Medicine, 2001) followed by the lecture from Dr. Edmond Fischer (Physiology/ Medicine, 1992). Dr. Hunt talked about cell cycle regulation and its implementation in cancer disease. He said that tumour cells are a mixture of damaged and undamaged cells; they are not only always tumour cells. The cells proliferate at certain stages and then stop growing. He is trying to understand how the control of the cell cycle relates to the treating cancer. Dr. Fischer presented cellular regulation by tyrosine phosphorylation in cell growth.After these two lectures, we had a round table discussion from 11:00 am. Dr. Günter Blobel (Physiology/ medicine 2001), Dr. Leland Hartwell (2001), Sir Dr. Timothy Hunt (2001), and Dr. Craig Mello (2006) joined to this discussion. Students threw questions to the Laureates in different aspects. In order to answer the question of Laureates' contributions to the society, Dr. Craig Mello (Physiology/ medicine, 2006) said that the Laureates' discovery will be worthless if it cannot be implemented. According to Dr. Blobel, political leaders should take initiative to carry the Laureates' works to the general public. He said 'Scientists cannot solve everything'. To make it humorous he said 'scientists can only educate the politicians' to remove public ignorance. There was one question to the Laureates from one of the students asking 'what they do when they fail in their work'. To answer that they said, 'Fail a lot then successes.' To learn something 'you have to have failure,' Dr. Blobel said this. Failure is the heart of your success. In the lunch, Dr. Zafar took all of us in an informal lunch invited by the American people. It was a joint lunch programme with the students from USA, India and Bangladesh. We scattered into different tables to get the opportunity talking with the students. I joined a table where we talked about individual view and belief in God. How we think about our religion and God, and then analyse the religion from the perspective of science. I invited them to Bangladesh to see the longest seashore in the world and the view of sunshine and sunset at Kuakata. At the end of the lunch, Dr. Zafar introduced us with a researcher named Shuvendu Bhattacharya from India who received the best researcher prize few days ago. This is another fun part of this meeting; you have always a wide choice in front of you to talk with people, introduce yourself and request them for any future opportunity in his/ her institution if it works.From 3:00 pm there was a 'scientific bazaar' where we got one more chance to talk with the Laureates and asked them the questions what we had. I joined Dr. Ferid Murad (Physiology/ medicine in 1998) in the Bazaar. Dr. Murad said not only about his research but also his social observations, family perspectives and provided a human aspect to the research world.July 4th, 2007, WednesdayOn the 4th day of our meeting, there were presentations from Dr. Bert Sakmann (Physiology/ Medicine, 1991), Dr. Avram, Hershko (Chemistry, 2004), Dr. Werner Arber (Physiology/ Medicine, 1978), Dr. Günter Blobel (Physiology/ medicine 2001) and Dr. Robert Huber (Chemistry, 1988) in their respective fields. In the afternoon, I joined to the discussion panel with Dr. Avram Hershko. In the discussion he said that mentorship is very important for a student to do his/ her own research. A researcher should use his/her own judgment to pursue the importance of the work that he/ she has been doing. He also talked about balancing between research and family life which seemed to me very important as a human being.In the evening, we joined to a special concert in the City Theatre along with the Nobel Laureates, academic, ambassadors and other renowned scientists.July 5th, 2007, ThursdayIn the morning, we heard about Dr. Richard Roberts (Physiology/ Medicine, 1993), Dr. Aaron Ciechonover (Chemistry, 2004), and Dr. Rolf Zinkernagel (Physiology/ Medicine, 1993) s' works. Like the previous round table discussion, I enjoyed another round table discussion with Drs. Fischer, Hershko, Murad, Neher and Roberts about medical sciences and society. Dr. Roberts said that the scientists have voices to influence a society but the diplomats do not take science seriously. Dr. Murad told that they were interactive but journalists should publish news accurately. In this regard he told us one of his experiences in Hong Kong. Once when he was there, a journalist came hurriedly to his escalator and asked him "Are you the father of Viagra?" Dr. Murad said, "No". On the following day, Dr. Murad found that the local daily newspaper had a heading saying that 'Dr. Murad said Viagra is not his son'! Regarding the journalisms, Dr. Murad focused on the importance of the clarity of news. Also the laureates said that to be a good scientist, you should love science and need to create a hybrid between other scientists. In the evening discussion session, Dr. Roberts said that no politicians should take any decision without any scientific background.July 6th, 2007, FridayIt was the last day of our journey. We joined with the Nobel Laureates on a ship for the last moment. The farewell ceremony took place in the 'Isle of Mainau'. Countess Sonja Bernadotte concluded the 2007 ceremony standing in front of the palace. We spent several hours in Mainau to see a variety of trees, flowers and other attractive places. Overall, I learned a lot of things from this meeting. It was a greatest experience in my so far life. The diversity of scientific disciplines, cultures and people provided a very rich experience. It has shown us the way how to choose a research area, think, analyse and troubleshoot a problem. The Laureates told us stories about their lives as graduate students. Also they mentioned that if anyone works targeting to receive a Nobel Prize, it is kind of tough for that researcher to achieve it. Because if we know our goal before approaching to a problem, it will no more be a discovery at all.

Bangladeshi students meet Nobel Laureate scientists

2007-07-20T20:41:00.000+06:00

A. Fattah, from Vienna

Six Bangladeshi talents; Minhaz Ahmed, Jakia Amin, Sutapa Barua, Khademul Islam, Touhidul Islam and Ayshea Sania led by Prof Zafar Iqbal; joined the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting for the first time in history of Bangladesh. They were among 560 young scientists from 63 countries to join 18 Nobel Laureates in the 57th meeting dedicated to "Physiology or Medicine" taking place from 1 - 6 July on the shore of Lake Constance in Lindau, Germany. They belong to country's leading lights of science selected by a multi-stage selection process. It is expected that young Bangladeshi talents through personal contact with the Nobel Laureates and young scientists will play a key role in establishing world-class research facilities in Bangladesh.Lindau has become the seat of close encounters between the Nobel Laureates and the young scientists of tomorrow and thus became a place for nurturing nascent scientific talent from all over the world. It is not surprising that the young strugglers found it a lifetime opportunity in being selected for these meetings with the great scientists and the Nobel Laureates too found these meetings 'most refreshing and stimulating'.To take into account the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of the sciences six Nobel Laureates of Chemistry joined fourteen from Physiology and Medicine this globally unique dialogue. This year's meeting featured 14 specialised lectures by the Nobel Laureates, two panel discussions "Basic science in molecular medicine" and "Medical sciences and society" and there were group scientific discussions for the Laureates and young scientists. In addition a new element "Scientific Bazar" had been added where 18 Nobel Laureates were answering questions from the international scientific elite of tomorrow, discussing current research issues, and giving valuable tips for a career. To mark the German "year of Humanities 2007" a discussion on "Humanities and Sciences" had also been added. The Meeting ended with the traditional journey by ship to the Isle of Mainau. All lectures and discussions were broadcasted via Internet stream live enabling viewers from all around the world with an interest in science to "attend" the Lindau dialogue. It uploaded on the Website after the live streaming and, together with contributions from previous Meetings, now it is a part of a globally unique database of scientific excellence.Participation of Bangladeshi students this year was not without pains due to lack of funds. Being initiated by personal initiative and effort of several people response for funds from prospective sponsors was difficult to gather for this novel venture, particularly for those attendants living outside Bangladesh. It is hoped that the difficulty will disappear in future.The next 58th meeting of the Nobel Laureates dedicated to Physics will be held 29 June to 4 July 2008. Bangladeshi students are encouraged to apply via a specially created website http://www.lindau-bangladesh.org.bd/ by 16 December 2007 giving ample time for evaluation / interview to keep deadline for reaching all nominations to Lindau Council by end February 2008. Final selection made by the Lindau council will be announced by end April 2008. Participants (usually less than 30 years old) will be selected from among undergraduate students, master and doctoral students and young postdoctoral scientists in the field of Physics or closely related to Physics with high emphasis on gender balance.

Dhaka, Friday 20 July 2007 / 5 Shraban 1414 / 4 Rajab 1428

ROLF M. ZINKERNAGEL

2007-06-03T21:31:00.001+06:00

ROLF M. ZINKERNAGEL

1996 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine with Peter C. Doherty, "for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence"

Background
Born: January 6, 1944
Place of birth: Basel, Switzerland
Residence: U.S.A.
Affiliation: Institute of Experimental Immunology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Zinkernagel received his M.D. from the University of Basel in 1970 and his Ph.D. from the Australian National University, Canberra, in 1975. He joined the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra in 1973 as a research fellow and soon began collaborating with Doherty on a study of the role the immune system plays in protecting mice against infection by the lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, which can cause meningitis. Their research centred on the white blood cells known as cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which act to destroy invading viruses and virus-infected cells.

In their experiments, Zinkernagel and Doherty found that T lymphocytes from an infected mouse would destroy virus-infected cells from another mouse only if both mice belonged to a genetically identical strain. The T lymphocytes would ignore virus-infected cells taken from a different strain of laboratory mice. Further research showed that in order to kill infected cells, T lymphocytes must recognize two major signals on the surface of an infected cell: those of the infecting virus and certain “self” molecules called major histocompatibility complex (MHC) antigens, which tell the immune system that a particular cell belongs to one's own body. In the experiment, the T lymphocytes from one mouse strain could not recognize MHC antigens from another on the infected cells, so no immune response occurred. The discovery that T lymphocytes must simultaneously recognize both self and foreign molecules on a cell in order to react against it formed the basis for a new understanding of the general mechanisms of cellular immunity.

After leaving the Curtin School in 1975, Zinkernagel served as an associate professor (1979–88) and full professor (1988–92) at the University of Zürich and became head of the university's Institute of Experimental Immunology in 1992.

His observations in the area of T-lymphocyte biology have provided much of the foundation on which our current understanding of T-cell immunity is based. He also worked on the role of the thymus and the protective and pathological effects of immune T cells.

Compiled by: minhaz [minhaz@jaist.ac.jp]

BERT SAKMANN

2007-06-03T21:29:00.000+06:00

BERT SAKMANN

1991 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the function of single ion channels in cells"

Background
Born: 1942
Residence: Germany
Affiliation: Max-Planck-Institut für Medizinische Forschung, Heidelberg

He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Erwin Neher in 1991 for their work on "the function of single ion channels in cells," and invention of the patch clamp.

Born in Stuttgart, Sakmann enroled in Volksschule in Lindau, and completed the Wagenburg gymnasium in Stuttgart in 1961. He studied medicine from 1967 onwards in Tübingen, Freiburg, Berlin, Paris and Munich. After completing his medical exams at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, he became a medical assistant in 1968 at Munich University, while also working as a scientific assistant (Wissenschaftlicher Assistant) at Munich's Max-Planck-Institut für Psychiatrie, in the Neurophysiology Department under Otto Detlev Creutzfeldt. In 1971 he moved to University College in London, where he worked in the Department of Biophysics under Bernard Katz. In 1974 he completed his medical dissertation, under the title Elektrophysiologie der neuralen Helladaptation in der Katzenretina (Electrophysiology of Neural Light Adaption in the Cat Retina) in the Medical Faculty of Göttingen University.Afterwards (still in 1974), Sakmann returned to the lab of Otto Creutzfeldt, who had meanwhile moved to the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen. Sakmann joined the membrane biology group the in 1979.

To mention in brief about his work, it can be described as, the first recordings of native ion channels in biological membranes were made by Bert Sakmann and Erwin Neher using an innovative modification of the voltage-clamp method. Rather than penetrating the cell with a sharp electrode as was traditionally done in voltage-clamp experiments, Neher and Sakmann fabricated blunt-tipped glass pipettes that, when pressed gently against the membrane of a cell would isolate a small area of membrane (diameter = 1 mm). In this way they were able to trap or isolate one or a few ion channels in the membrane. Typically, a single ion channel conducts about 10 million ions per second. The corresponding current, however, is not as impressive; only a few picoamperes. The primary difficulty for Sakmann and Neher in their development of the patch clamp method was noise. Transistors used to make the amplifier, and thermal noise associated with a low resistance seal between the glass pipette and the membrane often obscured the rectangular-shaped currents arising from opening of single channels. In the years following the introduction of their method, two improvements were made to compensate for these problems. New low-noise transistors were used in the construction of high quality amplifiers (Fred Sigworth made significant contributions here). Also, in 1981 the "gigaseal" modification of the method was introduced by Owen Hamill in Sakmann's group. Seals exceeding 10 GW were subsequently reported, and impressive low-noise recordings could be made without difficulty.

Compiled by: minhaz [minhaz@jaist.ac.jp]

JOHN E. WALKER

2007-06-03T21:24:00.000+06:00

JOHN E. WALKER

1997 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry "for elucidation of the enzymatic mechanism underlying the synthesis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP)"

Background
Born: 1941
Place of Birth: Halifax, Great Britain
Residence: Great Britain
Education: Received M.A. and Dr.Phil. at Oxford University, Great Britain
Affiliation: Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK)

In full John Ernest Walker British chemist who was corecipient, with Paul D. Boyer, of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1997 for their explanation of the enzymatic process that creates adenosine triphosphate (ATP).

After receiving his doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1969, Walker undertook research projects at universities in the United States and Paris. His award-winning work
was conducted at the University of Cambridge in the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, which he joined in 1974, becoming senior scientist in 1982.

Walker’s early research in the mid-1970s analyzed the sequences of the proteins from the bacteriophage G4 and from mitochondria. This led to the discovery of triple over-lapping genes in G4 (with D. Shaw and B.G. Barrell) and to the discovery that subunits I and II of cytochrome c oxidase were encoded in the DNA in mitochondria. He also helped to uncover the modified genetic code in mitochondria.During the work on mitochondria, he developed an interest in the enzyme complexes in the inner membrane of the organelle that carry out oxidative phosphorylation, in the early 1980s Walker began studying ATP synthase—the central energy-producing molecule in most life-forms—which aides in the synthesis of ATP, the carrier of chemical energy. Focusing on the chemical and structural composition of the enzyme, he determined the sequence of amino acids that make up the synthase's protein units. In the 1990s, working with X-ray crystallographers, Walker clarified the three-dimensional structure of the enzyme. His work supported Boyer's “binding change mechanism,” which explained the unusual way in which the enzyme functions. Walker's findings offer insight into the way life-forms produce energy.

He also received a Knighthood in 1999 and was named an honorary member of the British Physical Society in 2000.

Edited by: minhaz [minhaz@jaist.ac.jp]

1st Draft of Hartwell_Avram_Huber's work

2007-05-21T12:17:00.000+06:00

Leland H. Hartwell
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2001
Leland Hartwell won the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physiology orMedicine, together with Tim Hunt (2002, Protein synthesis, proteolysis, and cell cycle transitions. Biosci.Rep. 22:465–486) and (Sir) Paul M Nurse (2002, Cyclin dependent kinases and cell cycle control. Biosci. Rep. 22:487–499). The prize was awarded to the three scientists for their discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle.
Why yeast?
The motivation of Hartwell’s research career was to understand cancer. He found that intriguing aspect of cancer problems can be resolved by studying a simple eukaryotic cell, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, than the human cell. One reason for this is that it is relatively easy to obtain mutants, and then to characterize them, in yeast. And mutants that fail to carry out important controlling functions in cell growth have been key to Hartwell’s approach. Also the cancer cells grew in plastic Petri dishes when normal cells did not.
Yeast model to cancer research
Hartwell et al. studied the fidelity of chromosome transmission in yeast cells to learn more about how chromosome fidelity is maintained in the normal cell cycle. The genetic instability of cancer cells is due to genetic defects that affect the cell cycle machinery, DNA repair, or cell cycle checkpoints. Since the biochemistry of each of these processes are well known, it was possible to define the genetic changes that lead to loss of fidelity in many cancers. These defects created a vulnerability for the cancer cell relative to the normal cell that provided a powerful therapeutic advantage if the appropriate vulnerability were targeted for therapeutic intervention. So, a drug discovery program was developed to understand yeast genetics to discover and validate cancer targets. The goal was to identify drugs and drug targets that would present a therapeutic advantage. That is, where the cancer cells would be more sensitive to the drug or to inhibition of the target than the normal cells. The idea was to construct yeast cells that contained mutations characteristic of specific tumors (altered in mismatch repair, cyclin, activated telomerase, etc.). The mutant and normal cells were screened for drugs that killed the mutant yeast more effectively than wild-type yeast. This approach identified drugs with therapeutic advantage. In addition, the protein targets were identified which if inhibited by drugs would provide therapeutic advantage. Yeast lends itself to this goal. So, a mutation characteristic of certain types of cancer was studied and mutations in few genes were identified. These genes were the potential drug targets. Targets were identified that would kill mutants defective in the DNA damage checkpoint. These targets were enzymes of deoxynucleotide biosynthesis and components of the DNA replication apparatus.

References:
1. Hartwell, L. H., (2004), Yeast and Cancer. Bioscience Reports, 24 (4/5): 525- 544.
2. Hartwell, L. H., Szankasi, P., Roberts, C. J., Murray, A. W., and Friend, S. H. (1997) Integrating genetic approaches into the discovery of anti-cancer drugs. Science 278:1064–1068.
3. Bender, A. and Pringle, J. R. (1991) Use of a screen for synthetic lethal and multicopy suppresser mutants to identify two new genes involved in morphogenesis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol. Cell Biol. 11:1295–1305.

Hershko, Avram
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2004
Avram Hershko won the Nobel Prize with Aaron Ciechanover, and Irwin Rose, to contribute on the ground-breaking chemical knowledge of how the cell can regulate the presence of a certain protein by marking unwanted proteins with a label consisting of the polypeptide ubiquitin. Proteins so labelled are then broken down, degraded rapidly in cellular "waste disposers" called proteasomes. This discovery helped them to demonstrate the ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation that helps controlling a number of other critical biochemical processes, including cell division, the repair of defects in DNA, and gene transcription, the process in which genes use their coded instructions to manufacture a protein. Diseases such as cystic fibrosis result when the protein-degradation system does not work normally, and researchers hoped to use the findings to develop drugs for the treatment of such illnesses.
Avram Hershko studied reticulocyte extract that contained large quantities of haemoglobin. In the attempts to remove the haemoglobin using chromatography, Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko discovered that the extract could be divided into two fractions, each inactive on its own. But it turned out that as soon as the two fractions were recombined, the ATP-dependent protein degradation restarted. In 1978 the researchers reported that the active component of one fraction was a heat-stable polypeptide with a molecular weight of only 9000 which they termed APF-1 (active principle in fraction 1). This protein later proved to be ubiquitin. It was shown that APF-1 was bound covalently, i.e. with a very stable chemical bond, to various proteins in the extract. It was further shown that many APF-1 molecules could be bound to the same target protein; the latter phenomenon was termed polyubiquitination. Polyubiquitination of substrate proteins is the triggering signal that leads to degradation of the protein in the proteasome. It is this reaction that constitutes the actual labelling, the "kiss of death" if you will.
Since ubiquitin occurs so generally in various tissues and organisms, ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation are of general significance for the cell. The ubiquitin system has become an interesting area of research for medicines against various diseases. Such preparations can be aimed at components of the ubiquitin-mediated breakdown system to prevent the degradation of specific proteins. They can also be designed to cause the system to destroy unwanted proteins. A medicine already being tested clinically is the proteasome inhibitor Velcade (PS341) which is used against multiple myeloma, a cancer disease that affects the body's antigen-producing cells.

Reference: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2004/public.html

Robert Huber
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1988
Robert Huber received the Nobel Prize jointly with Johann Deisenhofer and Hartmut Michel. The trio was recognized for their work in first crystallizing an intramembrane protein important in photosynthesis in cyanobacteria, and subsequently applying X-ray crystallography to quantify the protein's structure. The information provided the first insight into the structural bodies that performed the integral function of photosynthesis. This insight could be translated to understand the more complex analogue of photosynthesis in plants.

Huber began his work with studies of proteins involved in excitation energy and electron transfer, light-harvesting proteins, later bili-building protein, the reaction centre and in ascorbate oxidase. His work has led to the development of methods on protein crystallography and the elucidation of protein structures which serve as targets for ligand design and development in medicine and plant protection including the key components of photosynthesis. It has also led to the development of Patterson search methods, to methods and suites of computer programmes to identify data evaluation and absorption of correction, for protein crystallographic computing, for computer graphics and electron density interpretation and refinement and for area detector data collection. These methods and programmes are in use in many laboratories in the world today.
A protein was taken from a photosynthetic bacterium which, like green plants and algae, uses light energy from the sun to build organic substances. The organic substances serve as nourishment for both plants and animals. Using the oxygen in the air, plants and animals consume these nutrients through what is termed cellular respiration. The conversion of energy in photosynthesis and cellular respiration takes place through transport of electrons via a series of proteins, which are bound in special membranes. These membrane-bound proteins are difficult to obtain in a crystalline form that makes it possible to determine their structure, but in 1982 Hartmut Michel succeeded in doing this. Determination of the structure was then carried out in collaboration with Johann Deisenhofer and Robert Huber between 1982 and 1985.
Photosynthesis in bacteria is simpler than in algae and higher plants, but the work rewarded in 1988 led to increase understanding of photosynthesis in these organisms as well. Broader insights have also been achieved into the problem how electrons can, at an enormously high speed (in a billionth of a second), be transferred in biological systems.

References:
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9041372/Robert-Huber
http://www.misu.ait.ac.th/NewsAndEvents/newsletterData/HTMLFormat/iss3no6/nobel.htm

Mr. Munir Hasan wrote about Lindau Trip in The National Daily: The Prothom Alo

2007-05-13T19:49:00.000+06:00

Preapare the Nobel Laureate's personal profile highlighting their contribution

2007-05-11T15:35:00.000+06:00

Dear all participants.
CC: organizers, Dr. Fattah Sir, Dr. Zafar Iqbal Sir, Munir Hasan bhai.

Prof. Fattah Sir yesterday asked me over Phone from Austria (Vienna) to inform all of you to preapare One page-Nobel Laureate's personal profile highlighting their contribution which leads them to become a Nobel Laureates. Actually this is need to share among us to know far better about them promptly.

According to this, its better if we work one 3 Nobel Laureates per person, so that we can prepare it very soon and distribute among ourselves via Internet/email.

Document type: MS wordSize: A4, Single Space, default margin with 12 font.[try to add. nobel laurets Photo :5X5 cm images at the top right of each page.]
Avoid any large image or figure but very essential figures or illustrations are most welcome, in that case TEXT/content may be 2 pages maximum/person(Nobel Laureates).

If you have any problem pls contact with Dr. Fattah Sir directly, He would be happy to respond you.

Ms. Ayesha Sania will work with Nobel Laureates:

Arber, Werner 1978 Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineBlobel,
Günter 1999 Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineBlumberg,
Baruch 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Mr. Abul Bashar Mir Md. Khademul Islam will work with Nobel Laureates:

Ciechanover, Aaron 2004 Nobel Prize in ChemistryEigen,
Manfred 1967 Nobel Prize in ChemistryFischer,
Edmond 1992 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Ms. Sutapa Barua will work with Nobel Laureates:

Hartwell, Leland 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineHershko,
Avram 2004 Nobel Prize in ChemistryHuber,
Robert 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Mr. S.M. Touhidul Islam will work with Nobel Laureates:

Hunt, Sir Timothy 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Mello, Craig C. 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Michel, Hartmut 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Ms. Jakia Amin will work with Nobel Laureates:

Murad, Ferid 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Neher, Erwin 1991 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Roberts, Richard 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Mr. Minhaz Uddin Ahmed will work with Nobel Laureates:

Sakmann, Bert 1991 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Walker, Sir John 1997 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Zinkernagel, Rolf 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

*****911** Please try to complete these job by due date.Please ask to Dr. Fattah Sir about the deadline, and send CC to all participants and organizers after completion.

MINHAZ UDDIN AHMED

I have never seen such nice and enthusiastic people like you! ...

2007-05-09T05:17:00.000+06:00

Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 01:03:08 +0600
From: "Ayesha Sania"

Dear Minhaz and Khademul and all

I have never seen such nice and enthusiastic people like you! You have collected almost all the info needed for the trip and made my life so simple. I really did like the way Minhaz sorted out the issues chronologically. Thanks friends!

I could not follow and reply to your last mails, because I was on my way from Sweden to Bangladesh. But if I am not wrong, I have not seen Touhid replying to any of the mails. Is not he aware of the issue?

My phone numbers are- ********* (res) and 0171********. You can call me anytime you feel like. It would be great if I could be of help anyway.

I will write to the secretariat for the supporting papers as you have suggested ASAP.

Keep in touch

Ayesha
from, Bangladesh

Health Insurance Certificate: Contact with Lindau office

2007-05-08T22:36:00.000+06:00

hi all

To apply Schengen Visa you will need international medical Health insurance certificate that covers Europe. For this certificate you have to pay money. However, I just come to know that Lindau is going to cover the Health Insurance. So, please ask conference secretary (Elisa) for Hard copy of the certificate confirming that Lindau is going to cover medical during our stay at Lindau. If you have this certificate from Lindau, will not need any other health insurance certificate for visa I GUESS.

Best regards
Khademul Islam
Yamaguchi, Japan

Expressing yourself for the general readers

2007-05-08T21:14:00.000+06:00

Dear Sutopa, Sania, Jakia, Minhaz, Khademul and Touhid,

I have decided to make a news coverage in next Sunday in prothom alo. So help me in this regard by providing the following--

1. Write 2/3/4 sentences regarding your reaction when you first heard that you are among the selected.

2. Write few more on how you looking into this opportunity.

3. Send pictures-- One PP but also picture in your workplace, in the lab or so on. I may make colaz on it.To catch the sunday issue I need all the above by tomorrow.Also furnish me with your contact no, so that I can make a call, if necessary.

Keep contact

from Munir Hasan, Prothom-Alo

Fattah Sir wrote about Lindau local trip, please read

2007-05-08T21:12:00.000+06:00

From: "A.FATTAH" To: "Khademul Islam" Subject: Re: Fw: Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 15:51:57 +0200
Dear Khademul Islam

I happened to see your other mail on cost. Munich though little near, Frankfurt is more convenient. Munich airport it too far from the city. For coming to Lindau you have to change in Munich main station. The cost 320 euro was probably given to you by travel agent in Japan. It is too high even for first class. ( You can find the price in the internet. I know the price from Vienna to Lindau that is about 9 hrs cost less than 150 return).You can buy easily train ticket at the station. The local transport in Lindau and around is provided by a free all time valid bus pass given at the time of registration. If you are staying in the island which is too small and all are in walking distance. But some people are staying around the island. The free pass is given at the time of registration which is on Sunday. From railway station to place of the meeting is at beast 10 min walking. Even you have to buy a weeklong valid transportation pass it is about 8 euro (for safe side you can say 10 euro). It is not my intention to be 'kechi' (in Japanese) but just to give you an idea.

All the best to you and Jakia.

-fattah-

Pls ask all to join here

2007-05-08T10:25:00.000+06:00

hi Sutapa,

If possible please ask rest others to join here and share all. Me too, like this sort of
communication and feel comfortable than groupmails or so on.

Still, Sania did not join. So, send her invitation again.

And pls. correct the link you posted on recent email about blogger website;

the link should be like: http://lindaubangladesh.blogspot.com/

and ask everybody to fix it as : ADD TO FAVORITES by a single mouse click.

I will post about the 20 NOBEL LAUREATS very soon, it depends on my time availability..

Regards

Minhaz

Please use only this site!

2007-05-08T10:12:00.000+06:00

Hi All
May I request you to use only this site. Because it is time consuming for me to check each of the sites several times a day. So please stick on this blog site to update others about the latest infos.
Thanks
Sutapa.

GNOBB: Sited about 2007 selected participants. Thanks to GNOBB and its creator Prof. Islam

2007-05-08T10:05:00.000+06:00

From: GNOBB homepage: http://www.gnobb.org
Dhaka, May 5, 2007. According to a news item received from a GNOBB member, the following have been selected to participate in Lindau 2007 Physiology or Medicine Meeting. Earlier we published a news item provided by Professor Muhammed Zafar Iqbal at Shah Jalal University of Science and technology (SUST), Sylhet, requesting young scientists to apply for grants enabling them to meet Nobel Laureates at Lindau, Germany in the field of Physiology or Medicine. It may be mentioned that the Lindau Council is interested in bringing young Bangladeshi talents into the Lindau dialogue and through it establish a relation in order to foster their vision of Lindau as a window to the world. Lindau Council would like to reach out to the young Bangladeshi’s, who study/work in or out of their homeland and to give them the possibility of joining forthcoming Lindau meetings. GNOBB feel exceedingly delighted to announce their names and wish from the bottom of their hearts that this historic meeting with the world leaders in science inspires them to do world class research in the area of their specialization and place their country’s name in the world atlas of biological and medical science.

Thanks

2007-05-08T09:45:00.002+06:00

Hi Minhaz, Jakia and all
Thanks for the posts. That helps. If your plan to go is on 30th then I will also fly on 30th and come back on 7th. I will fly from Bozeman, MT, USA. I will be kind of irregular till 15th of May since I have two finals in this week and thesis submission to my advisor on 15th May. I will be an active member after that timeline :). I will set a suitable time for the conference chat and let you know. By this time, please post your favorable time to log in. And please make a list of which Laureates are going to the meeting. After that we can look into their works progressively. Again, for me, of course after 15 th May :).
I appreciate all of your help.
Thanks
Sutapa.

Update May 08, 2007

2007-05-08T09:37:00.001+06:00

Dear Sutapa, sania, khadem, touhid and jakia

....
Thanks for your email. Its wortwhile to talk ASAP.
We are running out of time, and who know how long it takes
to arrange all those as we are living on different corner of the world with diff. time zone.

Recently I, and one of my friend Khademul Islam who is also selected to participate at Lindau, discussed a lot about several issues and found something which needs everybody's attention.

First:

To be honest, according to our communication with the lindau Secretariat, we are now sure that we are getting the financial support for boarding and lodgings at lindau, BUT not any TRAVEL allowances for both air-travel and train and bus.. Our supporting organization like BAS may help, about which Dr. Zafar Iqbal Sir would tell us later, we hope.

Second:

As all of we need to issue visa ASAP, so we should better ask the secretarial office (according to website !!) to send us hardcopy of the materails like: which may necessary to issue schengen visa.

REQUIRED DOCUMENTS TO BE SENT AS HARDCOPIES FOR VISA PURPOSE:

1. Invitation/Acceptance Letter2. Registration confirmation letter 3. Hotel/Accomodation reservation letter with its address4. Financial support letter for boarding and lodging in Lindau

email these at : "Elisa Mussack" elisa.mussack@lindau-nobel.de

also need to send your postal address at the bottom of your message.

Third:

Me and khadem were discussing about which airport would be closest to travel to lindau, we found , Zurich.

Khadem wrote: Amar mone hoi Zurich air port is close. Karon Zurich hote airport transfer fees sob chaite kom. ( http://www.dialoge.com/Airport_transfers.153.0.html) .

Fourth:

You are sited on the web: www.gnobb.org you can see if you like.

these are so far update from us, if you have any then pls. share..

Fifth:

Lets share the travel itenary ASAP, so that we can arrange the air travel booking which might be necessary to issue visa. I am confused cos, some embassy here in Osaka asking for confirm ticket.. i dont know yet...

Sixth:

if you dont have any problem, then share your phone no too, (in case you thing that might be helpful !!!) we will try to call and then fix other problems too.

Pls. correct if any of these information seems confusing to you.

Minhaz

Home: 0081761520715
mobile:00818030449474

Reply-1: boarding and lodging

2007-05-08T08:52:00.000+06:00

hi sutapa: Nice idea, i and khadem and his wife jakia who also selected, choosed 30 june as arrival date and 08 july as leaving date from lindau.whats your plan, let me know? minhaz
and also which airlines, airport and etc etc would be better, ??

minhaz

Boarding and lodging

2007-05-08T00:16:00.000+06:00

Hi Lindau meeting participants
Have you decided the date when you will go to Lindau, Germany? I want to put the same date on the 'Boarding and Lodging' section when you are planning. Could you please post the time and date in this blog?
Thanks
Sutapa.

We are greatful to our Academic Ambassador

2007-05-05T08:01:00.000+06:00

We are greatful to our Academic Ambassador from Bangladesh:

মুহম্মদ জাফর ইকবাল

Muhammed Zafar Iqbal Sir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammed_Zafar_Iqbal)
and Bangladesh Academy of Science(http://www.bas-bd.org)

Selected Participants of Lindau 2007, Physiology or Medicine Meeting.

Ms. Ayesha Sania ICDDRB: Center for Health and Population Research, Bangladesh , Dhaka , Bangladesh

Mr. Abul Bashar Mir Md. Khademul Islam Yamaguchi University , Ube , Japan

Ms. Sutapa Barua Montana State University , Bozeman, Montana , USA

Mr. S.M. Touhidul Islam Dept. of Genetic Engineering and Biotech. Dhaka University, Bangladesh

Ms. Jakia Amin Yamaguchi University , Ube , Japan

Mr. Minhaz Uddin Ahmed Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) , NOMI, ISHIKAWA , Japan

Visit Lindau Bangladesh Official Website:

http://www.lindau-bangladesh.org.bd/

Road to Lindau....2007

2007-05-05T07:27:00.000+06:00

You are invited to Join this blog area..

2007-05-05T07:21:00.000+06:00

Hi,

Please join this Lindau Participants blogsite to share our views and ideas in the days to come.
Initially we will discuss about future follow up for joining to Lindau Conf. 2007.

Dont forget to follow your email to join here. For any help pls. ask us anytime.

Minhaz
JAIST