2013 Nobel Prize Predictions

All eligible nominees are certainly in it to win it, but we can't help identifying these front-runners who their works stand out the most, who have conferred great benefits on mankind. But of course, there can only be one worthy laureate (individual or group of no more than three people).

With just a week until the announcement of the first prize for this year, the stakes have never been higher for betting on possible winners of what is widely considered the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine physics, chemistry, peace and economics. 

By no means do I claim to be a fortune teller, not even touching that with a ten-foot pole; for a bit of guidance one may look to the winners of the Lasker awards for medical research, the Shaw prizes for astronomy and life sciences, the John Bates Clark medal recipients for economics, or maybe a strategy the analysts at Thomson Reuters use, researchers most frequently cited (called citation laureates) -- you weren't thinking predictions were simply blind mindless conjectures, were you?
In fact, Thomson Reuters analysts have quite an impressive track record, since 2002 they have correctly predicted 15 of the 44 prizes awarded in the science (all but the Peace and Literature prizes) category, including all nine winners back in 2011. Could this year's predictions be a home run? We haven't long to find out.

Below are predictions of three likely winners in each award category in the sciences.

Physiology or Medicine prize
• Dr Dennis Slamon, for identifying HER-2/neu oncogene or which aggravates tumours in over a quarter of breast cancer patients.
• Adrian Bird, Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin, for discovery of the mechanism that alters genes so cells can develop into specific tissues.
• Daniel Klionsky, Noboru Mizushima and Yoshinori Ohsumi, for elucidating the molecular mechanisms and physiological functions of autophagy (which is a process by which the body destroys cells it no longer needs).
Announcement date: 7 October

Physics prize
• Paul Higgs and Francois Englert, for predicting the existence of the Higgs boson, which gives a particle its mass. It has been confirmed at CERN last year.
• Hideo Hosono, for his discovery of iron-based superconductors.
• Michael Mayor, Didier Queloz and Geoffrey Marcy, for discovering the first extra-solar planet (51 Pegasi b).
Announcement date: 8 October

Chemistry prize
•Valery Fokin, K. Barry Sharpless and M.G. Finn, for their work on something called Modular click chemistry, which is an approach to building small substances.
• Bruce Ames, for inventing the Ames test, a test for determining which chemicals may be carcinogenic.
• Paul Alivisatos, Chad Mirkin and Nadrian Seeman, for their work on DNA nanotechnology.
Announcement date: 9 October

Economic sciences prize
• Joshua Angrist, David Card and Alan Krueger, for their study on labour markets, value of education, social programs and other aspects of microeconomics. • Sir David Hendry, M. Hashem Pesaran and Peter C.B. Phillips, for their work on forecasting, modelling and other uses of data.
• Sam Peltzman and Judge Richard Posner, for their work on economic effects of regulation. 
Announcement date: 14 October

They all are no doubt worthy contenders, we'll just have to wait and see. Before then, why not have a guess at the Peace and Literature prizes as well? Mine is anybody's guess.

Did you know? Each laureate receives a gold medal, a heavily decorated diploma and a sum of money decided by the Nobel Foundation (In 2012, each prize was worth US$1.2 million).