The Nobel
prizes this year were announced from October 5 to October 11. The Prize for Physiology
or Medicine was awarded first, followed by that in Physics, Chemistry,
Literature, Peace. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory
of Alfred Nobel was awarded the last on October 12.

Every year prizes are presented to the
recipients in Sweden and Norway in December. This year, however, due to the
coronavirus pandemic, the ceremony in Stockholm was virtual, from the City Hall in the
Swedish capital. The laureates were handed over their prizes through the
embassies of their home countries and their universities.

The
Nobel Peace Prize was awarded before a smaller audience in Oslo on December
10.

Here
is a recap of this year’s Nobel prizes:

Physiology or Medicine: Dr Harvey J Alter, Dr Michael
Houghton and Dr Charles M Rice received the honour for their discovery of
Hepatitis C virus. The three scientists “made a decisive
contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health
problem,” the Nobel committee said.

Also Read: Know what Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry is for

Physics: Roger
Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez received the Nobel Prize in Physics “for
their discoveries about one of the most exotic phenomena in the universe, the
black hole,” the Nobel committee said.

Chemistry: Emmanuelle
Charpentier and Jennifer A Doudna were jointly awarded this year’s prize in
Chemistry for their work in developing the gene editing tool — Crispr-Cas9.

Literature: The Nobel Prize in
Literature was awarded to American poet Louise Glück, for
her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes
individual existence universal,” the Nobel committee said.

Peace: The Norwegian Nobel Committee
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2020 to the World Food Programme (WFP) for “its
efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for
peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts
to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict,” the committee
said.

Also Read: American poet Louise Gluck wins the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature

Economic Science: Paul
Milgrom and Robert Wilson were awarded this year’s Sveriges
Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. This year’s
laureates were given the honour for their work in their study of auction theory
and development of new auction formats.