There may be a fascinating controversy in store for the Nobel Prize this year.

One of the awardees, Michael Houghton, previously was awarded but declined to accept the Gairdner Prize because it didn& #39;t include two researchers who he felt made key contributions to the discovery:

Those researchers, Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo, previously worked with Houghton at Chiron, and were left out when Houghton was awarded the Lasker as well.

I think it& #39;s unclear whether Houghton will be willing to accept the Nobel.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140112052337/http://www.folio.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?v=104208&i=104377&a=3">https://web.archive.org/web/20140...

Because of his beliefs, Houghton left the $100,000 Gairdner Prize unclaimed.

Lots of people talk about how the big prizes don& #39;t accurately reflect modern team-based science, but being willing to give up 100k for those beliefs is really quite remarkable.

Kuo and Choo were the 1st authors on the two @ScienceMagazine articles listed in the Nobel Foundation& #39;s press release, underscoring that their work truly was central to the discovery being recognized.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2020/summary/

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/me... href=" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/244/4902/359.long

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/2... href=" https://science.sciencemag.org/content/244/4902/362.long">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/2...

Two people have previously declined the Nobel - Sartre (Lit 1964, because he declined all official honors) and Le Duc Tho (Peace 1973, because Vietnam wasn& #39;t actually at peace).

No scientist has previously declined the Prize for failing to recognize their colleagues.