Forgotten Scientists? -"Should auld acquaintences be forgot and never brought to mind!"

"Should auld acquaintances be forgot

and never brought to mind!"

Here's a cup o'(of) kindness yet

For the "sake o' auld lang syne*""

(For "old time's sake")

Words by R. Burns.

The song is sung pretty near world wide to ring in the New Year.

Rather fitting both for the current "financial" crises, and specifically for my much more eminent colleagues Nobel Prize candidates - "The Nobel Class" most of whom will be forgotten to the general public, sometimes happily for some, sometimes not for others. Age and a rich experience is certainly a great compensation for some members of the "Nobel Class". Also it is only recently about the last ten years or so that breakthroughs in the more applied domains have been acknowledged, by the Nobel Committee, luckily for the general public and the many simply hardworking scientist or scientist turned manager!


This post follows directly and rapidly ("a quickie") following my previous post, yesterday here in "Conversations" cf. also my post this morning in my blog: "The Materials Chemists" on the "Human-Angle" in this years Nobel Prize 2008.

Thanks to internet and the press releases of the major Organisations, R&D Insitutes and Universities etc. I have been able to find the link to the French side in the isolation of HIV (V for virus) taken as an example in my previous post.

Without further ado here is the link in english to Institut Pasteur's role in this progress -LINK.

The important decision to tackle the problem in France dates from around 1982

Willy Rozenbaum, French clinician working at Hôpital Bichat at the time & Prof & Research Director Jean-Claude Chermann have been recently brought to the fore.

I hasten to add that, far from a specialist in these fields: medicine, biochemistry... I must refrain from further comment on the scientific approach. From a human stand point dare I say it, I refrained from donating blood for at least five years from 1986 to 1993.

Of course there are a number of famous cases of scientist being passed by which were certainly in the back-of-my mind (sub-conscience) I have a name on the tip of my tongue but ...

Let's not join the Financial Community and lose sight of realiy.

Cheers & keep fit & healthy.