Who can get the next Nobel Prize in infectious diseases?

• The road to the Nobel Prize is always open for those who go to medical school.
• The discovery of aetiological agents and entirely new antimicrobials for prevalent diseases could always earn the Nobel Prize.
• A surprising infectious aetiology of a health problem with a high morbidity, such as dementia, schizophrenia, obesity, inflammatory bowel diseases, and diseases known to be autoimmune in origin could strongly attract the Nobel Prize.
• A highly predictive epidemiological tool that includes all the potential confounding parameters and is directly applicable to daily life would be a useful solution that could increase the capacity to combat outbreaks and could attract a Nobel Prize.
• Collaborative studies from different disciplines, and also those that build a bridge between the basic and clinical sciences, will have greater chance of being awarded a Nobel Prize.

SummaryThe aim of this paper is to deliver a perspective on future Nobel prizes by reviewing the features of Nobel prizes awarded in the infectious diseases-related (IDR) field over the last 115 years. Thirty-three out of 106 Nobel prizes (31%) in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded for IDR topics. Out of 58 Nobel laureates for IDR topics, two have been female; 67% have been medical doctors. The median age of Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine was found to be lower than the median age of laureates in Literature (p < 0.001). Since the Second World War, US-affiliated scientists have dominated the Nobel prizes (53%); however before 1945, German scientists did so (p = 0.005). The new antimicrobials received Nobel prizes until 1960; however no treatment study was awarded the Prize until the discovery of artemisinin and ivermectin, for which the Nobel Prize was awarded in 2015. Collaborative works have increasingly been appreciated. In the future, more female laureates would be expected in the IDR field. Medical graduates and scientists involved in multi-institutional and multidisciplinary collaborative efforts seem to have an advantage.