Nobel Prize winning Professor Kurt Wüthrich discusses the way of scientists with Sookmyungians!
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- Writer 커뮤니케이션팀
- 보도일자 2016-10-06
Our university’s BK21 Plus Chemistry Project Team invited the Nobel Prize winning Professor Kurt Wüthrich and held a special lecture for the students titled “Basic Science and Everyday Curiosity” in room 651 of the College of Science building on campus at 3pm on the 29th (Thu).
Professor Wüthrich is a pioneer in chemistry who developed the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to reveal the three dimensional structure of giant molecules. He received the Nobel Prize for his achievements in revealing the structure of macromolecule protein inside organisms by using mass spectrometry and NMR methods in 2002. In addition to this, he was awarded numerous prestigious awards in the field of chemistry such as Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize and Gilbert Newton Lewis Medal. Currently he is a professor of biophysics at the ETH in Switzerland and a professor at The Scripps Research Institute in the U.S.
Beginning his lecture with photos of him playing soccer and MRI images of his knee, Professor Wüthrich introduced how he became a scientist and how he was able to become a renowned expert in the field of NMR. He who loved sports so much as to even work as a ski instructor for a while during his younger days said, “I began to take interest in the human body and protein as I started asking questions such as I wonder how fast I can run and how can I run even faster.” and that “Science is closely related to our everyday life.”
He gave examples of great scientists who won Nobel Prizes such as Pieter Zeeman, Albert Einstein, Felix Bloch, and Richard Ernst to emphasize that “When we ask the big questions in our everyday life, that is, if we have a fundamental curiosity of our questions and work hard to find the answers, we can ultimately reach the truth.” In particular, after a student asked him what his secret was to winning the Nobel Prize, he once again mentioned the importance of patience by saying “There are some people who are daunted and give up in the middle, but good results will follow if you stand your ground and never give up.”
Professor Wüthrich had once visited our university and gave a special lecture titled “The World of Protein” in 2013 through the invitation by Professor Ham Si-yeon of the Department of Chemistry. This visit was also promoted by the Department of Chemistry, which was selected for the best master’s and doctoral support program BK21 Plus Project in December, in order to inspire the students who will be advancing into the field of bio-fusion chemistry. BK21 Plus Chemistry Project Team said, “We will continue to make efforts toward establishing curriculum and school system that foster core global leaders in the relevant fields, internationalization of researches, establishing in-depth industry-university cooperation system, and preparation of converged research promotion system.”