Meet our Nobel Laureates.

Meet our Nobel Laureates

121 Nobel Prizes have been awarded to members of the University of Cambridge for significant advances. These include:

  • the discovery of the structure of DNA
  • the development of a national income accounting system
  • the mastery of an epic and narrative psychological art
  • the discovery of penicillin

"The Nobel committee has voted to award you a Nobel Prize."

Every year a group of men and women will hear these words minutes before the news is announced to the world. They will join almost a thousand Nobel Laureates since 1901. These are people who, in the words of Alfred Nobel "have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind".

Nobel was a Swedish chemist, inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, poet and writer. He left a large share of his fortune to establish the Nobel Prize. These are awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. In 1968, Sweden’s central bank established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Nobel Prize facts

  • 121 affiliates of University of Cambridge have received more Nobel Prizes than those of any other institution.
  • Trinity College has 34 Nobel Laureates, the most of any College at Cambridge.
  • Dorothy Hodgkin is the first woman from Cambridge to have been awarded a Nobel Prize. This was for her work on the structure of compounds used in fighting anaemia.
  • In 1950, Bertrand Russell became the first person from Cambridge to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. This was for his 1946 work A History of Western Philosophy.
  • Frederick Sanger, from St John’s and Fellow of King’s, is one of only four individuals to have been awarded a Nobel Prize twice. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1958 and 1980.

News about recent Cambridge laureates

We meet some of our recent Laureates to find out what it's like to receive the Nobel Prize.

Poems on the Underground archive arrives at Cambridge University Library

Nobel Laureates of Cambridge

Roger Penrose wins 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovery about black holes