STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Two Israelis and an American won the 2004 Nobel Chemistry Prize for groundbreaking biochemistry work that has major implications for the treatment of serious illnesses, especially cancer.
Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko of Israel and Irwin Rose of the United States showed how our body cells give certain proteins -- the building blocks of all living things -- a "kiss of death" by marking them for elimination.
Proteins to be destroyed are given a molecular label, known as ubiquitin, before they are rapidly broken down into cellular "waste disposers" called proteasomes.
We stay healthy if this fast and furious selection works, but if something goes wrong in the breakdown process, we could contract cell-related illnesses such as cervical cancer or cystic fibrosis.
Problems with the division of sex cells, in which the enzymes are required to cut the rope between separating chromosomes, can meanwhile lead to spontaneous miscarriage during pregnancy or Down`s syndrome.
"Thanks to the work of the three laureates it is now possible to understand at molecular level how the cells control a number of central processes by breaking down certain proteins and not others," the jury said.
Ciechanover, 57, said on Wednesday that their work on protein degradation was contributing to the development of new drugs against disease.
"There are many, many more (drugs) that are definitively being developed," he was quoted as saying in Swedish by news agency TT.
There is already at least one drug on the market based on the laureates` research: Velcade, which treats multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow.
This is the second year in a row that the Chemistry Prize has been awarded for a medical discovery, after last year`s prize honored research on molecular biology.
It blurs the boundaries between the traditional scientific disciplines, allowing this year`s chemistry prize to closely resemble the 2002 Nobel Prize for Medicine, which was awarded to research on the protein mechanisms that ensure that new clones of dead cells are healthy duplicates.
Ciechanover works at the Technion Institute in Haifa, Israel, as does Hungarian-born Hershko, who is 67. They are the first Israelis to ever win the Nobel Chemistry Prize.
Rose, who is 78, is attached to the University of California in Irvine, in the United States.
The three laureates published a series of pioneering biochemical studies in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and much of their joint work was done during a series of sabbatical leaves that Hershko and Ciechanover spent with Rose at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, in the United States.
"This year`s laureates have explained the molecular background to a protein regulation system of great importance for all higher cells," the jury said on Wednesday.
It recalled that their research had laid a foundation for a constant stream of new discoveries of cell functions controlled by protein degradation.
The three will each receive a gold medal and share a cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor (1.1 million euros, 1.3 million dollars) at the formal prize ceremony held, as tradition dictates, on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the prize`s creator Alfred Nobel.
On Monday, the Nobel Medicine Prize went to US research duo Richard Axel and Linda Buck for pioneering work on mammals` sense of smell.
On Tuesday, the Physics Prize was given to US scientists David Gross, David Politzer and Frank Wilczek for research in explaining quarks, nature`s tiniest building blocks.
The Literature Prize will be announced on Thursday and the Peace Prize on Friday, before this year`s edition of the coveted prizes rounds off with the announcement of the Economics Prize on October 11.