Predicting Nobel Prize winners is notoriously difficult. The will of Alfred Nobel was that the prize should be awarded to those who have “conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” This criterion has a wide scope and whilst there may be indicators that can help with predictions, such as academic citations or other awards won, it is of course only the announcement itself that can put speculations to rest.
But can some scientific discoveries be so significant that a winner can be confidently asserted years ahead of the award? Some think so and such attention is currently being directed at the work of Professor Michael Levin, a biologist at the prestigious Tufts University near Boston.
Over recent decades Levin and his team have been using innovative dye techniques to show that when the body parts of an organism develop, including humans, an instructive electrical field appears ahead of the growth. He refers to these fields as ‘bioelectrical blueprints’.
In a striking example, Levin shows that when the face of a tadpole grows a bioelectrical blueprint in the shape of a face appears ahead of the cells forming into the face itself. The pattern appears to act like a ‘paint by numbers’ and instructs the cells to gather in the correct locations. Remarkably, these bioelectrical blueprints can be artificially replicated elsewhere on the body and this instructs the cells in that location to build the part. Levin provides the example of an eye that was grown on a tadpole’s stomach using this method.
A crucial question relates to the origin of the information that determines the precise shape of the body part and the process for its development—in other words, the ‘architect’s plan’ and build instructions. Levin explains that this information is not contained in the organism’s DNA and, puzzlingly, also says that it is not in the bioelectrical field either. And so where is the information encoded?
When pressed on this question in a recent interview Levin responded, “To really make progress on this, we really have to redefine what we mean by ‘where’…We need to make our peace with the fact that when we ask these questions about where does [the information] come from, the answer isn’t in the parts list.” Recalling the belief held by some mathematicians that mathematical laws pre-exist and are discovered rather than invented, Levin continued, “I think [the information] comes from wherever the truths of mathematics live”, adding, “Plato and Pythagoras were onto this hundreds of years ago.”
The Greek philosopher Plato is famous for his ‘Allegory of the Cave’, which he used to illustrate his proposition that the objects and qualities we see in the physical world are imitations of ideal ‘Forms’ that have a more fundamental and non-physical existence. Pythagoras had previously put forward a similar theory in relation to numbers.
It’s easy to see why people are speculating that a Nobel Prize is coming Nevin’s way. His research revolutionizes developmental biology and consequently has significant medical implications. But perhaps even more profoundly, Levin’s work has the potential to completely transform how humankind understands itself and the nature of the world around us.
