Scientists win Nobel chemistry award for work on DNA repair
Three scientists from Sweden, the U.S. and Turkey won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for showing how cells repair damaged DNA, work that can be used to develop new cancer treatments.
Swedish scientist Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Modrich and U.S.-Turkish national Modrich Aziz Sancar shared the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) award.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work on DNA repair “has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions.” Their findings can be used for the development of new cancer treatments, among other things, the academy said.
Lindahl, 77, is an emeritus group leader at Francis Crick Institute and Emeritus director of Cancer Research UK at Clare Hall Laboratory in Britain.
Modrich, born in 1946, is an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.
Sancar, 69, is a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
The academy said DNA was thought to be a stable molecule until the 1970s when Lindahl showed that it decays at a fast rate. Our DNA is damaged by ultraviolet rays from the sun and carcinogenic substances.
Sancar mapped a mechanism that cells use to repair ultraviolet damage to DNA while Modrich showed how the cell corrects errors when DNA is replicated during cell division, the academy said.
It said their research “has not only deepened our knowledge of how we function, but could also lead to the development of life-saving treatments.”
The award will be handed out along with the other Nobel Prizes on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
This year’s medicine prize went to scientists from Japan, the U.S. and China who discovered drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases. Japanese and Canadian scientists won the physics prize for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos have mass.
The Nobel announcements continue with literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.
A glance at the Nobel Prizes in 2015
The 2015 Nobel Prizes are being announced this week and next. The $960,000 awards will be handed out in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. Below is a look at the winners announced so far:
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MEDICINE
The prize went to three scientists who helped create the world’s leading malaria-fighting drug and another that has nearly wiped out two devastating tropical diseases, saving millions of lives.
Half the prize went to Tu Youyou – the first-ever Chinese medicine laureate – who took inspiration from traditional medicine to produce artemesinin, a drug that is now the top treatment for malaria.
The other half was shared by Japanese microbiologist Satoshi Omura and William Campbell, an Irish-born U.S. scientist, who created the drug avermectin. Derivatives of the drug have nearly rid the planet of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, diseases caused by parasitic worms and spread by mosquitoes and flies that affect millions of people in the developing world.
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PHYSICS
The prize was awarded to Takaaki Kajita of Japan and Arthur McDonald of Canada, who made key contributions to experiments showing that neutrinos change identities.
These subatomic particles are created in nuclear reactions, such as in the sun and the stars, or in nuclear power plants.
With their discovery, Kajita and McDonald helped prove that neutrinos must have mass, thereby changing “our understanding of the innermost workings of matter,” the Nobel committee said.
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CHEMISTRY
The prize went to Sweden’s Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Modrich and U.S.-Turkish scientist Aziz Sancar for their research into the way cells repair damaged DNA.
The Nobel committee said the trio’s work “has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions.”
Their findings have been used for the development of new cancer treatments, among other things.
This story was originally published October 7, 2015 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Scientists win Nobel chemistry award for work on DNA repair."