In this last of five Nature Videos from this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting on Physiology and Medicine Nobel laureate Oliver Smithies talks with Diego Bohórquez from Duke University (USA) about being hungry for knowledge.

Oliver Smithies, 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Diego Bohórquez, Duke University, USA

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Elizabeth Blackburn grew up in Hobart on the Australian island of Tasmania. It was a long journey from there to a Nobel prize and the lab she runs at the University of California in San Francisco. Malaria researcher Clare Smith is also a Hobart girl, and she’s trying to decide whether to follow in Blackburn’s footsteps and move overseas after she finishes her PhD. Karina Zillner is from Germany. Like Clare, she’s in the final stages of a PhD.  She’s developed a method for analysing sections of repetitive DNA.  Karina hopes her Eltechnique might be used in Blackburn’s lab, where they study telomeres — repetitive sections of DNA that protect the ends of chromosomes.  (More)

Camelia-Lucia Cimpianu is trying to decide between a career as a researcher or a practising doctor. In this film, she seeks advice from Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad who faced the same dilemma as a medical student in the 1960s. Murad chose the bench, and he subsequently discovered that a gas called nitric oxide (NO) acts as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system. It turns out that NO plays a role in many diseases — and possibly in the head trauma cases that Camelia studies.

Ferid Murad, 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Camelia-Lucia Cimpianu, University of Erlangen-Nurnberg, Germany

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In the next video of the Nature video team in cooperation with the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings Nobel laureate Eddi Fischer talks to a young researcher from China, Tong Qing, about ways to combat cancer.

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As last year, the Nature video team in cooperation with the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings filmed discussions between one or two young researchers and a Nobel laureate about current research topics in Physiology and Medicine, the world’s greatest health challenges and how to tackle them. Today we may present the trailer and the first of five such videos.

The young researchers the team follows in these films are working on malaria, cancer, viruses and more. They are also learning how to be scientists; how to write grant applications, how to collaborate with other research groups, and how to find the right career path. See what advice the laureates offer — and what questions the laureates have for them. (More)

Last year saw the introduction of a new session at the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting – the “Turning the Tables” discussion that took place on Wednesday afternoon. Originally a specially recorded session that was featured in a Nature Outlook supplement, the idea behind this 90-minute slot is to move away from the plenaries and afternoon forums where the laureates are the sole focus of the spotlight, and instead to create a conversation where the young scientists themselves can share the stage.

This year’s session involved a similar set-up to the initial experiment – six PhD students and three laureates, chaired this year by Scientific American’s Steve Mirsky, answered a series of informal questions about what it’s like to be a scientist. The students came from a variety of locations including Nigeria, India, Colombia and the US while the all-male laureates were Peter Agre, Thomas Steitz and Torsten Wiesel. The discussions were framed as a chance to compare notes on how scientific practice might have changed since the laureates were themselves starting off on the scientific path, and also whether there are any noticeable differences that arise from where you study.

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In 1969, one of the more memorable incidents in the public advocacy of science took place. The American physicist Robert Wilson was asked to testify before Congress in support of the construction of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, known as Fermilab. For Wilson, building this huge machine had been a labor of love and nobody had a better background for it. He had worked on the Manhattan Project where he was the youngest group leader in the experimental division, and after the war he had become a professor at Cornell University.

In the daily morning plenary lectures at Lindau, the Nobel laureates have a chance both to share the significance of their discoveries, and also words of advice for the young scientists eager to follow in their footsteps. During the course of the week, the audience is taken on a week-long tour of the ultimate scientific scrapbook as each page is lovingly turned by one narrator after another. Working models of data, scribbled pages from lab books, personal anecdotes, family photos and even famous quotations illuminate what it means to be a scientist for the different speakers.  (More)

The final day of this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting involved the customary boat trip to Isle of Mainau, where this year the Closing Panel Discussion focused on the issue of "Global Health."

To capture the live tweeting around these sessions, as well as video and blog content, we have created a Storify storyboard. We'll continue to update it as more coverage is published so you might want to bookmark it and check back again later to make sure you don't miss anything.

We've created storyboards for each day of the conference, so don't forget to check out coverage from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. and Thursday too. 

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What can be done about global health? It's the question on everyone's minds following Peter Agre's moving talk on malaria 'without borders' earlier in the week and Christian De Duve handing the baton of all the world's challenges to the young researchers in the last lecture: "Our generation has made a mess of it... the future is in your hands". 

The need is clear: Better diagnostic tools, as discussed in the panel on the future of biomedicine, will be for people that can afford them. The Economist's science and technology editor Geoffrey Carr starts the concluding panel of the Lindau meeting by setting out the stark reality: "The greatest health needs are in the developing countries".

Hans Rosling, professor of International Health at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and the founder of the Gapminder Foundation, kicks off the debate presenting an animated graph showing how life expectancy and fertility have changed over time for each country. He says that in the 60s, there was a clear 'developing' and 'developed' world division with people in the developing world having big families and short lives, and the opposite for rich countries. Rosling uses the case of Bangladesh to illustrate his point: In the 60s, it was typical of a developing country, but by 2006 the child fertility rate is 2.3 children and people are living longer because of better healthcare. "People say the world isn't getting better... that's bullshit," he exclaims.

Kelly Quesnelle: I came to Lindau as many students nearing the end of their doctoral studies: somewhat disillusioned by the tenacious nature of academic science that I have come to realize in graduate school and in search of inspiration for my future. 

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The penultimate day of this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting began with a morning of plenary sessions by four of the Laureates followed by a panel discussion on, "Being a (Responsible) Scientist."

To capture the live tweeting around these talks, as well as video and blog content, we have created a Storify storyboard. Do check back as we'll be updating it as more coverage is published. There are also individual Storifys for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  (More)

This is the 61th year that the Nobel Laureate Meetings have been held at Lindau. The conference was held for the first time in 1951, funded by the wealthy count Lennart Bernadotte, as an effort to restore the international scientific ties that had been severed by the war. The count’s daughter, Bettina Bernadotte, has been the patron of the Lindau Conferences since 2007. The different institutions and countries usually offer the countess a gift, to thank her for her hospitality. But the American delegation do things differently this year.  (More)