PUS Cache 2: British Nobel Prizes in Medicine Mystery Cache

For years I have had two difficult questions to dodge. The first comes at work when people see me with cuts and grazes and I have to answer the question “what’s geocaching”. The second is when people ask what I do for a living - the answer being that I am a biochemist. So, here is a series of puzzle caches that offer a chance to learn some of the underpinning science, or scientific history. Hence, PUS caches (public understanding of science).

The cache is not at the given location. The cache is  at 52 5a.bcd -1 1e.fgh

For my second cache I want to remember those individuals who have slaved long and hard hours in the lab and have then made a discovery that has changed the scientific world, and often had implications way beyond. This cache has a final field element where the long toil of scientists will be played out to you……

Until you get there, here are some important breakthroughs to think about. Some are easier to solve than others, and then in each case you want the last digit of the year in which that person was awarded the Nobel Prize

a) Nerve impulses “jump” across the gap between two nerves by virtue of this chemical, a prize recognized jointly with a German pharmacologist

b) One of the British co-awardees here was in the news for unwise comments about women in the lab, but let’s remember the science here. This work showed how cell division is tightly regulated. Get that wrong and cancer is the inevitable outcome.

c) Knock-out! If you want to discover what a gene does, or to model a disease in a small squeaking mammal then this discovery underpins all of that. Regardless of your views on animals in the lab this technology has literally revolutionized modern medicine.

d) “See you again in 22 years sir”. Rarely do the Nobel committee say that but that’s what happened for this double winner. His first award year is the one you want.

e) Power to the people, and the birds, bees, bacteria. In fact, power to pretty much every organism on earth. What we call “energy” cells call ATP……and this man worked out how they make it. He shares his surname with a brand of whisky

f) Tightness in the chest? You need this man’s discovery to help you.

g) remember curly arrows from chemistry lessons? This man invented them, although his Nobel Prize was for work on the chemistry of morphine and cocaine.

h) X-rays are fine, but we only see bone. What if we could image other tissues, even tumours, or the response of the body to certain stimuli? We can now, thanks to a Nobel Prize winner who worked at Nottingham University.

You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.