Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello, two American researchers, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for groundbreaking contributions to molecular biology. The Nobel committee credited them with identifying a key mechanism governing how genetic information flows within living cells.
Their finding, known as RNA interference and first published in 1998, plays a role in how organisms defend against viruses and may open the door to new treatments for serious diseases. Fire, born in 1959, holds a professorship at Stanford University School of Medicine; Mello, born in 1960, is a professor of molecular medicine at Massachusetts Medical School.
This year's winners will share 10 million Swedish kronor (about 1.37 million dollars) and each receive a gold medal at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December.
The Medicine Prize traditionally opens the Nobel season. The Physics and Chemistry prizes follow on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, with Economics on 9 October. The Literature Prize is expected around 5 or 12 October, and the Peace Prize announcement will close the season on 13 October.
The Nobel prizes were established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, and have been awarded since 1901.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in October 2006, in its own words.