Question

Svedberg was awarded Nobel Prize for the development of
A) Chromatography
B) Centrifugation technique
C) Karyotyping
D) Electrophoresis

Answer 1

Hint:- Theodor Svedberg was a Swedish chemist. He received the Nobel Prize for chemistry. His works were mainly on physical chemistry. He did pioneer work in the fields of nuclear chemistry as well as radiation biology. The Svedberg unit (S) was named after him. It is not a standard (SI) unit. This unit is also called sedimentation coefficient and is a measurement of the time it takes to move in a centrifuge tube.The ‘S’ in ribosomes such as 80 S in eukaryotes is this svedberg unit.

Complete solution:
- Chromatography is a technique used for separating the individual components in a solution. The dissolved mixture is the mobile phase and the mixture separates while moving through a material which is the stationary phase.
- Centrifugation is a technique used for separating particles from a solution based on their density, shape, size, and viscosity under acceleration. Centrifugal force is required for centrifugation.
- Karyotyping is a test used to identify chromosomes within a mass of cells. It is a process that pairs all the chromosomes and can provide a genome-wide analysis of an organism. This method can help identify a genetic disease if present. For example, Down's syndrome is a trisomy of the twenty-first chromosome. Through karyotyping, one can see if there are three chromosomes instead of two in the genome of the person.
- Electrophoresis- It is an electro-kinetic process. It separates the charged particles from fluid based on their electric charge. For example, DNA is separated using agarose gel electrophoresis where the DNA is negatively charged and travels towards the positively charged electrode.
The correct answer to this answer is B) centrifugation technique. Svedberg could work on proteins and colloids with the help of a centrifugation technique called ultra-centrifugation.

Note:- Mikhail Tsvet introduced the technique called chromatography. He worked on separating plant pigments like xanthophyll and chlorophyll through chromatography. Hans von Winiwarter worked on karyotyping. In humans, there are 23 total pairs of chromosomes with 22 pairs of autosomes and 1 pair of sex chromosomes i.e. the X and Y chromosome present in male and XX chromosomes in females. Arne Tiselius introduced electrophoresis technique but many modern techniques based on electrophoresis are still being discovered.