The image is a copy of a rarely reproduced photograph of Santiago Ramón y Cajal as a young man.
The image was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s family in 2025.
This wooden printing block bears an illustration of Santiago Ramón y Cajal. It is probable that he not only executed the original drawing but also engraved the image into the block himself. Commissioning such work from a professional engraver was costly, so Cajal learned the craft of engraving the image into the wood. The block is made of boxwood, which is very hard and lacks distinct growth rings.
The illustration depicts a cross-section of the midbrain of a newborn mouse. The section is a sagittal cut—a vertical slice that divides the brain into a left and a right side.
The printing block was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s great-grandson, Ángel Cañadas Bernal, in 2025. He presented the gift on behalf of the family.
This drawing is a preparatory sketch for an illustration in one of Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s scientific works on the brain and nervous system. The image shows a vertical cross-section of the thalamus, a part of the midbrain, in an eight-day-old mouse.
Ramón y Cajal created his images after studying a thin slice of the brain under a microscope. To make the nerve cells visible, Cajal stained them using a method developed by Camillo Golgi, who shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Cajal. After the preparatory drawing, he produced a clean, finalized version that was used for the printed image in the scientific work.
Ramón y Cajal’s images are characterized by clarity, precision, and rich detail, demonstrating great artistic talent. In his youth, Ramón y Cajal wanted to become an artist but was encouraged by his family to pursue medicine. His artistic skill and interest proved invaluable in his exploration of the brain, the nervous system, and its various types of cells.
The drawing was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s great-grandson, Ángel Cañadas Bernal, in 2025. He presented the gift on behalf of the family.
This poster presents an art gallery that was run by Phillippe Aghion’s father, Raymond Aghion in 1956–1966. The gallery was in Saint-Germain-des-Près in Paris, a neighbourhood with a vibrant art scene.
The family moved in artist circles. The names of some of the artists who exhibited at the gallery are featured on this poster. It was designed by the Israeli artist Igael Tumarkin around 1960. Tumarkin believed it was crucial with a dialogue between Israel and Palestine, and Aghion shared his opinion.
Aghion’s parents were both from Jewish families in Alexandria, Egypt, and moved to Paris when they were young. His mother, Gaby Aghion, became a famous fashion designer and founded the Chloé label. His father, Raymond, was a politically active communist and worked for a social revolution in his native Egypt. One of his aims was that everyone should have access to new technology, in a better and more equal society. Technological development and economic growth are what Philippe Aghion’s research is about.
Phillippe Aghion donated this poster to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025 as a tribute to his parents.
Joel Mokyr bought this record when he was 15. It was the first LP he ever bought, and he still thinks Schubert’s ninth symphony is among the most perfect pieces ever composed. The recording of the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Otto Klemperer is from 1962, and Mokyr considers it to be the best one ever made.
The album also serves to illustrate Mokyr’s research into how new technology makes old technology obsolete. We can now listen to the music on digital streaming services instead of on vinyl and CDs.
Joel Mokyr donated the LP to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
László Krasznahorkai has made numerous trips to China and Japan and written several stories that are set in Japan. On one of his visits, he bought this netsuke, a Japanese miniature sculpture, which has been very important to him.
The netsuke represents a wise old man. The wise man is very calm. The artist has not portrayed him as someone who is contemplating. Instead, he seems to be beyond thinking, since there is no longer any reason for him to think. To be at one with existence is sufficient for him, and this is why the wise man is so peaceful and happy. This also gave Krasznahorkai new insights. After writing his novel War and War, Krasznahorkai experienced a personal crisis and thought he could never write again. Without the wise man, he could never have resumed his writing.
A netsuke was originally a kind of button – it was used to hold clothing such as kimonos together. From the 19th century, netsukes became more ornately crafted. It is not entirely easy to identify the artist who made this netsuke, since several artists worked under the name of Mazakasu. But the originator was probably Mazakasu Sawaki, who was born in Nagoya but lived and worked in Osaka for most of the late 1800s. Krasznahorkai bought the netsuke from the artist’s family.
László Krasznahorkai donated the small figurine of the wise man to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025, thanking the museum for keeping it safe even when he is no longer alive.
“It is so vulnerable, so small. It can be lost, it can be broken. But if it can remain here, I will be at peace.”
For Fred Ramsdell, these shoes are linked to a special memory. Here is his story:
“So, there I was, on the last day of a nearly 4-week camping trip. We’d just driven through Yellowstone National Park and had stopped the truck at an unoccupied campground to let the dogs wander around a little. As we neared ‘civilization’, my wife Laura checked her phone for the first time in over a week. And then she begins to cry out. I’m wondering what’s going on – and she comes out with a big grin and tells me I’ve won the Nobel Prize. I honestly didn’t believe her at first, but then, it was abundantly clear that I had, in fact, won the Nobel Prize. I was wearing these shoes when she told me – I’d been wearing them virtually every day for the past 4 weeks. We’d hiked hundreds of miles and driven hundreds more. We get into the mountains as often as possible, but almost always take an extended trip in September when most people have gone back to work or school. It’s a way for me to look at life, including science, from a different perspective. Back in the days when we were trying to identify and characterize the scurfy mouse, we would backpack regularly (we had younger dogs back then). Scientific progress is often a painstakingly slow process, with many false steps and delayed gratification. It’s a wonderful career, but it can also be extremely frustrating. Being able to get out of my own head helps me ‘recharge’ and sometimes see a problem from a new perspective. Hiking rarely leads to any scientific breakthrough, but, like science, it feeds my soul.”
(Scurfy mice have scaly skin, caused by a genetic defect that causes a lack of regulatory T cells. Scurfy mice were crucial to the research that led to Fred Ramsdell and Mary Brunkow receiving the Nobel Prize.)
Fred Ramsdell donated the shoes to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This sculpture is associated with Darwin Molecular, a small biotech company in Seattle, Washington, USA, where Mary Brunkow and Fred Ramsdell did their early research on the immune system’s regulatory T cells.
The sculpture was made by Pat Moss, a colleague at Darwin Molecular, who had metalwork as a hobby. It is a Darwin fish, a fictional creature with legs. The Darwin fish has been used as a counterpoint to the stylised fish that has come to signify Christianity, representing the view that all species have been created through evolution and not by a higher power. Darwin Molecular used evolutionary processes in their research and development, and the Darwin fish was adopted as a symbol within the company. The sculpture, which exists in several copies, originally served as a trophy in the company’s annual golf tournament. When Mary Brunkow was awarded the Nobel Prize, a former colleague gifted this trophy to her.
Mary Brunkow donated the trophy to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
The two mouse ornaments Shimon Sakaguchi donated to the Nobel Prize Museum have a special significance:
“In recognition of the ethical principles that guide scientific research, I am honored to donate this handmade ornament to the Nobel Prize Museum. It was created by my mother many decades ago as a heartfelt reminder to uphold the spirit of animal welfare in my immunology work. A woman of great artistic talent with a passion for pottery and painting, she crafted this mouse ornament with great care and skill. Throughout my academic career, I have cherished this ornament and displayed it in my office at every institution where I have served. It now finds its rightful place among objects that celebrate the values and responsibilities of science.
In addition, I am honored to donate a second mouse ornament, which belonged to my wife, Noriko. Just as we have walked this path of science together, supporting one another as partners in both life and research, it is our sincere wish that these two mice remain together in the museum as a symbol of that enduring partnership.”
Shimon Sakaguchi donated the mouse ornaments to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This picture is a version of an illustration that Akane Shimizu shared on the media platform X (formerly Twitter) after it was announced that Shimon Sakaguchi would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2025. She later gave this signed copy to Sakaguchi, who donated it to the Nobel Prize Museum.
The protagonist in the drawing is a “regulatory T cell” stopping a “killer T cell” from attacking other body cells.
The books are Japanese and English copies of Shimizu’s はたらく細胞（Hataraku-Saibo) “Cells at Work!”, a manga series where the body cells are anthropomorphised. The series was later animated and was a critical and popular success. The series has made one of the key concepts in Sakaguchi’s research, “the regulatory T cell”, a household name among Japanese kids and helped spark interest in science and immunology. For Sakaguchi, the series symbolises the link between scientific discovery and social commitment.
Shimon Sakaguchi donated the illustration and the books to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This handkerchief shows the structure of three metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that were developed by Susumu Kitagawa in 1992, 1997 and 2003 respectively. The first resembles a honeycomb. The second is the first structure that is stable even after being extracted from its solvent. The third adapts the pores in the structure to the particular gas molecules that are absorbed.
The handkerchief was designed by Mindy Takamiya, a colleague of Kitagawa at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University.
Susumu Kitagawa donated the handkerchief to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This box contains four sealed test tubes with different kinds of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) developed by Susumu Kitagawa.
The first has the same structure as a honeycomb. It marks the transition from dense network structures to intentionally porous structures.
The second is the first structure that absorbs gas molecules.
The third is the first structure where gas molecules are stored in an orderly way.
The fourth is the first structure where the parts are flexible and can be shifted in relation to each other.
The box is made of paulownia wood from the Aizu region in Japan. This is a dense wood which is silvery-white and insect-resistant. Therefore, it is often used in traditional joinery.
Susumu Kitagawa donated the samples to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This model, donated by Omar Yaghi, represents a significant turning point in the field of metal–organic frameworks (MOF). The model exhibits the atomic and molecular arrangement of MOF-5, the first example of an ultrahigh-porosity crystalline material. This means that the material has a strong ability to store other substances.
The nodes in this structure consist of metal oxides and the links between them of organic molecules. MOF-5 was developed in 1999. The research on MOF combines two fields in chemistry: inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry.
For Omar Yaghi, the model also symbolises the collaboration with one of his first research students. Yaghi met the student Hailian Li when he was a guest researcher in 1989 at Nanjing University in China. When Yaghi got his first professorship at Arizona State University, Li wrote to him that he had read that Yaghi was working on metal-organic compounds, and he believed he could do substantial work in the field, perhaps even better than Yaghi himself. So, Yaghi offered him a doctoral position. The development of MOF-5 started with an experiment where Li found crystals that he extracted from their solvent. He believed that they were unstable and therefore uninteresting. On Yaghi’s advice, he left the crystals in their solution. When they studied the crystals microscopically, they realised they were stable and this meant that they had made an important discovery. An unforgettable moment!
According to Yaghi, being a mentor is about finding the balance between giving students the freedom to find their own path, and being present and actively ensuring that students do not miss vital discoveries.
Omar Yaghi donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This model, donated by Richard Robson, is a 10,3-a network, an important structure in the design of framework materials.
The model is assembled from pipes with precisely angled, wedge-shaped ends. The wedge angles and their orientations at each end of every pipe are deliberately chosen so that, when connected, the components assemble into the desired three-dimensional network.
The model is made of ordinary plumbing pipes. Robson ordered pipes in specific certain angles and lengths and then assembled them himself into the structure he wanted.
The approach of designing molecular building blocks that are intrinsically predisposed to form specific network topologies, such as the highly symmetric 10,3a-network, is fundamental to the rational synthesis of molecular framework materials.
Richard Robson donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
This rock climbing guide was used by John Martinis on his hikes in Yosemite National Park in California.
For Martinis, mountain climbing is a welcome break from his research. It requires focusing totally on something else and takes his mind off his work on quantum mechanics. When he returns from his hikes, he is ready to take a fresh look at research problems.
He has climbed since he was young, and John Clarke who supervised his doctoral work used to worry a little every time he went rock climbing. But he always returned safe and sound, and many years later was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics together with Clarke and Michel Devoret.
John Martinis donated the mountaineering guide to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
These electronic circuits were used by John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis in their experiments on quantum phenomena in the 1980s. Most of the lab equipment they used has been lost, but John Clarke salvaged these parts, which were used to amplify electrical signals.
The experiments showed that the effects of quantum mechanics that usually only appear on a microscopic scale of atoms and particles can be observed on a macroscopic scale in electrical circuits.
John Clarke donated the electronic circuits to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
Bengt Samuelsson noted all his travels and meetings in his calendar by hand. The calendar had to be very small, with not much space for entries, because it was important for him to have time for his own research.
Samuelsson had many assignments, especially after being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1982. He was involved in multiple research collaborations and boards. He was also the president of Karolinska Institutet in 1983–1995 and chair of the Nobel Foundation in 1993–2005. When this calendar was in use in 2006, he was still active in research, and he remained with the Karolinska Institutet until his death in 2024.
The spread for May shows a few of Samuelsson's commitments and interests. He travelled to La Jolla, California, for a meeting on lipidomics, a field of research where Samuelsson's contributions have been seminal. One meeting concerned the research-based pharmaceutical company Biolipox, of which Samuelsson was a board member. A meeting with the food society Måltidsakademien reveals his passion for gastronomy. A conference in Stockholm organised by the scientific journal Nature is also scheduled.
For his wife Karin, the calendar and pen are intimately associated with memories of her husband. She donated the items to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025.
T-shirts such as these were worn by staff at the Philippine web magazine Rappler that Maria Ressa co-founded in 2012. While giving her Nobel lecture in 2021, she held up a t-shirt such as this to emphasise her message. She spoke of how information technology had become a forum for spreading fear, anger and hate, but that we needed to turn this around. The text on the t-shirts says “In order to be the good, we have to BElieve THEre is GOOD in the world.”
When she donated the t-shirts to the Nobel Prize Museum, she said that they had caused discussions among her colleagues at Rappler. As investigative journalists, they are usually "grim and determined", since their attention is focused on atrocities. But they are doing it for their society, and Ressa is hopeful about the future.
Maria Ressa's hope lives on despite the adversities she encounters working as an investigative journalist. Her efforts to uncover power abuse and brutality in the Philippines has led to her being arrested several times. The first time was on 13 February 2019, and she chose to see the fact that she got released on bail the day after as her Valentine's gift from the government.
Maria Ressa donated the T-shirts to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2025. She also handed over a video from her first arrest.
This copy of the second volume of Bertha von Suttner’s novel Die Waffen nieder! is from Alfred Nobel’s own library. The book was published in 1889 and made Bertha von Suttner one of the main representatives of a growing peace movement.
Bertha von Suttner was Alfred Nobel’s secretary during a short period, and they became friends. Their conversations on peace are likely to have influenced how he expressed his intentions with the Nobel Peace Prize in his will. von Suttner received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905.
This equipment was used by Wolfgang Ketterle in experiments to create “Bose-Einstein condensates”, which only occur at extremely low temperatures.
To the left is one of the coils first used in the experiments in 1996, which was cooled by water through the tubes.
In the middle is an electronic control panel built by the researchers. It was installed between the experimental apparatus and a computer to protect against water failure in the cooling of the coils.
To the right is an atomic beam shutter in two parts, used in the experiments in 1994–2001.
Wolfgang Ketterle donated the equipment to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2001.
These books contain the accounts from a nitroglycerin factory in Fredriksberg outside Helsinki. The factory was established by Robert Nobel in 1865.
When Alfred Nobel began his attempts to launch nitroglycerin internationally as an explosive, it must have seemed natural to approach Russia and Finland, which was a grand duchy in the Russian Empire. Parts of his family still lived there.
Robert Nobel’s wife Pauline was from Helsinki, and the family were residents of the city around 1865. Like his brother Alfred and his father Immanuel, Robert Nobel was involved in the early production of nitroglycerin and built a factory in Pasila outside Helsinki in 1865. However, the attempts to launch nitroglycerin in Finland failed. Robert Nobel moved to Sweden, where he was periodically the director of the nitroglycerin plant in Vinterviken outside Stockholm.
The books were donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by Hans Nobel in 2002.
Overcoming obstacles is an inevitable part of both scientific work and life in general. This is how David Baker describes a pair of glasses and a broken ski pole:
“The orange glasses and the broken ski pole both symbolize overcoming adversity. I had an eye injury several years ago that made it impossible for me to look at computer screens; I was in despair about how to work for a month, when I discovered that the orange glasses solved the problem. I wear them when I give presentations, and so they have almost become part of my persona—I often get as much positive feedback about the glasses as the content of the talks! I am an avid backcountry skier, and I have broken many ski poles in the backcountry and still had to make it back to the starting point, which I obviously have so far—they not only represent overcoming adversity but my love of the mountains where I spend almost every weekend year round.”
David Baker donated the glasses and the ski pole to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
The large, red part of the model is the spike protein from the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19. The blue and green parts represent synthetic proteins developed by David Baker and his team. These proteins bind tightly to the spike protein and have proven to prevent the virus from infecting animals. The proteins have not yet undergone the required testing for use on humans.
David Baker donated the model to the Nobel Prize Museum in 2024.
This handbook of mechanics belonged to Immanuel Nobel. It is a Swedish translation of a book in German by the Austrian physics professor Andreas von Baumgartner. When it was first printed in 1842, Immanuel Nobel was stationed in Saint Petersburg in Russia, working on technological projects in several fields and running a mechanical workshop. Perhaps he got the book on returning to Sweden in the late 1850s, but he may also have consulted it in Russia. He never learned Russian but managed to get by on Swedish throughout his 20 years in Russia.
The book was acquired by the Nobel Prize Museum in 2008.
This fountain pen belonged to Ivo Andrić and accompanied him throughout his literary practice. It symbolises his social and artistic commitment and is a reminder of the importance of the written word.
The pen was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Belgrade City Museum in 2025. The Belgrade City Museum manages the museum of Ivo Andrić’s estate that was founded after he died, according to his last will.
This spoon was used by Andrei Sakharov in the 1980s during the time he was banished to Nizhny Novgorod (then called Gorky).
Sakharov was a physicist but had been a human rights advocate since the 1960s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his efforts. The Soviet authorities prevented him from going to the award ceremony. To hamper his work, he was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod in 1980. The apartment where he lived was under constant surveillance from across the street.
Apart from visits from his wife, Yelena Bonner, he lived alone for long periods, cooking for himself. This traditional Russian wooden spoon was a utensil he used daily during his exile, for instance when he fried food in a Teflon pan, so as not to scratch it. One dish he liked to make was a kind of curd that he fried lightly, because he preferred hot food. He also used the spoon to make scrambled eggs.
The spoon was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.
This glass holder was used by Andrei Sakharov in the 1950s and 1960s when he drank tea. The traditional Russian way of drinking tea was in a glass in a metal holder to avoid burning one's fingers. Tea was an essential part of Sakharov's daily life as a physicist and peace and human rights activist. A glass of tea had a given place on his desk. He used this glass holder at home in Moscow and may even have brought it with him during his frequent visits to Sarov (then called Arzamax-16) where he worked on the Soviet nuclear arms programme.
The glass holder was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.
This slide rule was used frequently by Andrei Sakharov when he worked as a physicist. Sakharov has contributed significantly to basic research in physics and the development of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. He played a key role in the Soviet hydrogen bomb project. Beginning in the late 1950s, he expressed his concern over nuclear weapons and worked to limit their proliferation. Later on in life, he was also active as a human rights advocate.
The slide rule was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.
