The
2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to scientists
Professor William G Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J Ratcliffe and Professor Gregg L
Semenza for their discoveries of "how cells sense and adapt to oxygen
availability," the Nobel Committee announced on Monday.
The discoveries made by the three men "have fundamental
importance for physiology and have paved the way for promising new strategies
to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases," said the Karolinska
Institute.
The trio — Professor Kaelin and Professor Semenza are
Americans, and Sir Peter is British — will share equally the 9 million kronor
($1.35 million) cash award.
It is the 110th prize in the category that has been awarded
since 1901.
Professor Kaelin works at Harvard, Professor Semenza at
Johns Hopkins University and Sir Peter is at the Francis Crick Institute in
Britain.
In announcing the prize, the Nobel Committee said the work
by the three laureates has "greatly expanded our knowledge of how
physiological response makes life possible".
The committee said that Professor Semenza, Sir Peter and
Professor Kaelin found "the molecular switch for how to adapt" when
oxygen levels in the body vary, noting that the most fundamental job for cells
is to convert oxygen to food and that cells and tissues constantly experience
changes in oxygen availability.
Thomas Perlmann, the secretary of the Nobel Committee at the
Karolinska Institute, said he was able to call all three laureates on Monday.
But he reached Professor Kaelin via his sister who gave him two phone numbers —
the first one was a wrong number.
"He was really happy," Professor Perlmann told a
news conference.
Prize the first of Nobel week
The announcement kicked off Nobel week. The Nobel Physics
prize is handed out on Tuesday and the following day is the chemistry prize.
This year's double-header Literature Prizes — one each for 2018 and 2019 — will be awarded on Thursday and the Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.
The economics prize will be awarded on October 14.
The 2018 literature prize was suspended after a scandal
rocked the Swedish Academy.
The body plans to award it this year, along with announcing
the 2019 laureate.
Prize founder Alfred Nobel — a Swedish industrialist and the
inventor of dynamite — decided the physics, chemistry, medicine and literature
prizes should be awarded in Stockholm, and the peace prize in Oslo.
He specifically designated the institutions responsible for
the prizes: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Nobel Prizes in
Physics and Chemistry; the Karolinska Institute is responsible for the Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine; the Swedish Academy picks the Nobel Prize in
Literature; and a committee of five people elected by the Norwegian Parliament
decides who wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
The economics prize — officially known as the Bank of Sweden
Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel — wasn't created by Nobel,
but by Riksbanken, Sweden's central bank, in 1968.
It is the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences that was tasked
with selecting the winner.
Nobel glory this year comes with a cash award, a gold medal
and a diploma.
The laureates receive them at elegant ceremonies in
Stockholm and Oslo on December 10 — the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
From source: https://www.livescience.com/youngest-vaping-related-death.html
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