PRESS RELEASE

22.02.2016

Exploring Life – The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Museum puts on exhibition in Children's City, Dubai

The Children's City in Dubai is presenting the exhibition entitled 'Exploring Life – The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine' from 21 February to 21 March. It is a cooperative undertaking of the Nobel Museum, Stockholm, and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. ATELIER BRÜCKNER from Stuttgart was given the job of designing the show. The exhibition is intended to awaken curiosity about the exploration of our bodies and shows how the discoveries of Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine have brought about changes in us and our lives.

Aimed at children and young people, five different areas, each dedicated to a particular theme, serve as a light-hearted introduction to the world of medicine. The topics covered are diseases and their cures, anatomy, the cell, DNA and making the invisible visible. The young museum visitors can build an oversize DNA model, zoom into the insides of the human body at media tables, discover a walkable projected "living" cell and examine their own skin under the microscope. Each of the darkened rooms concentrates on one specific theme.

The spatial installations are accompanied by the results of research and quotes by Nobel Laureates, shown as a three-dimensional graphic strip along the walls of the rooms. They encourage visitors to take a closer interest in science themselves. In "The Cell", there is a quote from Sydney Brenner, one of the Nobel Laureates from 2002: "My Uncle Harry had given me a microscope as a present ... This was the beginning of my contacts with the real science." The British biologist, born in South Africa in 1927, received the award for his groundwork in genetic research. His object of interest was the roundworm, which he established as a model organism in order to carry out a genetic analysis with cell division, cell maturation and organ development. At the same time, he monitored all these processes under the microscope.

The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded annually in Stockholm since 1901. Up to now, there have been 210 prize-winners, mainly from Europe and the USA. The first Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine was Emil von Behring from Germany. Other famous prize-winners are: Robert Koch (1905), Otto Loewi (1936) and the discoverers of the structure of DNA James Watson and Francis Crick (1962). In 1973, the prize went to Konrad Lorenz. In the individual theme rooms, there are quotes from approximately 100 Nobel Laureates.

In the prologue area of the exhibition, the young museum visitors are shown a chronological overview of the history of the Nobel prize and the long tradition of Arabian medicine. They also get to know the person who gave the prize its name, the Swedish researcher and industrialist Alfred Nobel (1833–1896).

A large-format projection shows him opposite the entrance, where he welcomes the young people and tells them that he wants to donate his fortune in order to honour work done in the areas of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace by people "who, in the preceding year, made the greatest contributions to mankind."

The exhibition is in two languages (Arabic and English) and is conceived as a travelling exhibition. It marks the start of a longer cooperative undertaking between the Nobel Museum and the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation that envisages joint exhibitions and series of events.

CONTACT

ATELIER BRÜCKNER GmbH
Claudia Luxbacher, Press and Communication
T. +49 711 5000 77 126
presse(at)atelier-brueckner.com
www.atelier-brueckner.com

Contact to the Nobel Museum:
Helena Wallemo
Press and Marketing Manager
Börshuset, Stortorget 2
10316 Stockholm | Sweden
helena.wallemo@nobelmuseum.se
T. +46 70 494 40 09