Record-setting 5 women win ’09 Nobel Prizes

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A record five women were among the 13 people awarded Nobel Prizes on Thursday, including a writer who depicted life behind the Iron Curtain and two American researchers who showed how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf presented the $1.4 million prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics at a glitzy ceremony at Stockholm concert hall. Hours earlier, President Barack Obama received the peace prize in Oslo.

The Stockholm ceremony was topped off by a lavish banquet in the capital’s city hall — where laureates were served a three-course gala dinner whose menu is a carefully guarded secret.

The prizes were created in Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will, which stipulated that they be granted to those who “have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.” They were first awarded in 1901.

Only 40 women have won the prestigious awards, including Marie Curie, who was given the 1903 physics prize and the chemistry prize eight years later. In all, 802 individuals and 20 organizations have received Nobel Prizes over the years.

Romanian-born author Herta Mueller accepted the Nobel literature award for her critical depiction of life behind the Iron Curtain — work drawn largely from her personal experiences. Mueller’s mother spent five years in a communist gulag, and the writer herself was tormented by the Securitate secret police because she refused to become their informant.

Elinor Ostrom, 76, made history by being the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, sharing it with fellow American Oliver Williamson for their work in economic governance. That prize is not one of the original Nobels but was created in 1968 in Nobel’s memory by the Swedish central bank.

Americans Elizabeth H. Blackburn, 61, and Carol W. Greider, 48, shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with countryman Jack W. Szostak for their work in solving the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.

The chemistry award was shared by 70-year-old Ada Yonath of Israel and Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz for their atom-by-atom description of ribosomes, the protein- making machinery within cells. Their research is being used to develop new antibiotics.

American George E. Smith shared the physics award with countryman Willard S. Boyle for inventing a sensor used in digital cameras. Also taking the prize was Charles K. Kao, also from the U.S., for discovering how to transmit light signals long distances through hair-thin glass fibers.

The prizes also include a diploma and a gold medal. They are always handed out Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896. The Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite died in San Remo, a link that the Italian city marks by sending flowers to decorate the ceremony in Stockholm.