2002 Nobel Prize in Medicine

Rev. 01/01/2020

from MSNBC

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 7 —  An American and two Britons won this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries about how genes regulate organ growth and a process of programmed cell suicide. Their findings shed new light on the development of many illnesses, including AIDS and strokes.

 

Sydney Brenner
Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Sir John Sulston
Cambridge University
Robert Horvitz
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Working with tiny worms, the laureates identified key genes regulating organ development and programmed cell death, a necessary process for pruning excess cells.
 

      BRITONS Sydney Brenner, 75, and John E. Sulston, 60, and American H. Robert Horvitz, 55, shared the prize, worth about $1 million.
       Working with tiny worms, the laureates identified key genes regulating organ development and programmed cell death, a necessary process for pruning excess cells.
       “Knowledge of programmed cell death has helped us to understand the mechanisms by which some viruses and bacteria invade our cells,” the institute said.
       “We also know that in AIDS, neurogenerative diseases, stroke and myocardial infarction, cells are lost as a result of excessive cell death.”
       Brenner, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., is also the founder of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley. He broke new ground by showing that a chemical could produce specific genetic mutations in the roundworm, the Nobel Committee said. Different mutations could then be linked to specific effects on organ development.

 

        Sulston, of the Sanger Center at England’s Cambridge University, discovered that certain cells in the developing worm are destined to die through programmed cell death. He demonstrated the first mutations of genes that participate in that process, the committee said.
       Horvitz, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, identified the first two “death genes” in the worms and showed that humans have a gene similar to one of them, the committee said. Scientists now know that most genes controlling cell death in the worms have counterparts in humans.
       Information about programmed cell death has helped scientists understand how some viruses and bacteria invade human cells, the committee said. In conditions such as AIDS, stroke and heart attack, cells are lost because of excessive cell death. In other diseases like cancer, cell death is reduced, leading to the survival of cells that are normally destined to die.
       
 

 

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