诺贝尔化学奖得主：雅克杜博歇

Telephone Interview with Jacques Dubochet Telephone interview with Jacques Dubochet after the announcement of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on 4 October 2017. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Chief Scientific Officer of Nobel Media. [Adam Smith] Hello, Professor Dubochet? [Jacques Dubochet] Yes, I am on the phone. [Adam Smith] My name is Adam Smith, calling from Nobelprize.org, and congratulations on the award of the Nobel Prize. [Jacques Dubochet] [Laughs]. Thank you very much. [Adam Smith] It must be quite a day you’re suffering. [Jacques Dubochet] Yes, it’s quite a day, but you see I’m still at the University of Lausanne and somebody is taking care of me, voilà, so there...I just follow what I’ve to do. [Adam Smith] That’s nice. [Jacques Dubochet] Yes, that’s nice. [Adam Smith] OK. So just a couple of quick questions. You have been awarded, in part because of your development of vitrification of water and people. [Jacques Dubochet] That’s right. [Adam Smith] So people know about liquid water and they know about ice, but I guess most people don’t know about vitrified water. [Jacques Dubochet] Yes. If you cool water, it becomes ice. It would be great if you could cool the water and immobilise the molecules, though keeping the structure, because when it’s frozen, when it’s immobilized, you can have it in the electron microscope and the water will not evaporate because in the electron microscope, it must be under vacuum, and water at normal temperature evaporates. So that, when it was possible to vitrify biological material, you could have it in the microscope in the vitrified state and observe it quietly in the electron microscope. This was the beginning and so, if you had…have it in ice, or if you have it without water, the molecules, like fish, are dead. [Adam Smith] Yes, beautifully said. And this…the Nobel Prize will put a lot of attention on you. How do you feel about that and about the responsibility of scientists who interact with the public? [Jacques Dubochet] That’s interesting. I’ve been…during the twenty years I was at the University of Lausanne, I have devoted a lot of effort to the curriculum – biology and society – and Lausanne at that time was unique in developing this curriculum for all our students. It was not the kind of additional piece of education, it was a core programme in the study of biology and it still continues. Tomorrow morning, I’ll give a talk at that course and the idea of this course is to make sure that our students are as good citizen(s) as they are good biologists. I can tell you that this is very close to my…to my heart. [Adam Smith] How wonderful. So, in a way, for twenty years, you’ve been preparing for this role. [Laughs] [Jacques Dubochet] Well, OK. You can guess that today I have a lot of journalists and I do not miss to speak about that. [Adam Smith] No, good. Lovely. Can we look forward to welcoming you to Stockholm in December? [Jacques Dubochet] Oh, I think so. [Laughs] Si Dieu me prête vie. If God is good enough, but I don’t mind God. [Adam Smith] Good. Well, we anticipate your arrival with great excitement. Thank you very much indeed, and once again, congratulations! [Jacques Dubochet] I thank you, of course. Goodbye. [Adam Smith] Yeah. Goodbye. [Jacques Dubochet] Thank you.