nobel prize medicine 2007

Excerpts from the citation awarding the 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to U.S. citizens Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technology known as gene targeting.

The process has helped scientists develop models on mice of human disorders including cardiovascular and neuro-degenerative ailments, diabetes and cancer.

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Gene targeting is often used to inactivate single genes. Such gene "knockout" experiments have elucidated the roles of numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease. To date, more than 10,000 mouse genes (approximately half of the genes in the mammalian genome) have been knocked out. Ongoing international efforts will make "knockout mice" for all genes available within the near future.

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With gene targeting it is now possible to produce almost any type of DNA modification in the mouse genome, allowing scientists to establish the roles of individual genes in health and disease. Gene targeting has already produced more than 500 different mouse models of human disorders, including cardiovascular and neuro-degenerative diseases, diabetes and cancer.

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Gene targeting has helped us understand the roles of many hundreds of genes in mammalian fetal development. Capecchi's research has uncovered the roles of genes involved in mammalian organ development and in the establishment of the body plan. His work has shed light on the causes of several human inborn malformations.

Evans applied gene targeting to develop mouse models for human diseases. He developed several models for the inherited human disease cystic fibrosis and has used these models to study disease mechanisms and to test the effects of gene therapy.

Smithies also used gene targeting to develop mouse models for inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and the blood disease thalassemia. He has also developed numerous mouse models for common human diseases such as hypertension and atherosclerosis.
STOCKHOLM: The 2007 Nobel Prize season kicks off on Monday with the announcement of the medicine prize and runs through October 15, with the fight against climate change tipped for the prestigious Peace Prize.

As is tradition, the Nobel Prize committees are keeping mum ahead of the much-awaited announcements, leaving observers to engage in a wild guessing game.

Americans tend to dominate the science prizes and last year they made a clean sweep, taking the medicine, physics, chemistry and economics awards.

For the peace prize, to be announced in Oslo on Friday, a total of 181 individuals and organisations are known to have been nominated.

The battle against global warming is seen as a strong candidate for the prestigious award, with former US vice president Al Gore and Canadian Inuit Sheila Watt-Cloutier believed to be contenders.

Gore has brought the issue to the top of the international agenda with his 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth , while Watt-Cloutier, the former head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, has campaigned to draw attention to climate change in the Arctic.

Climate change has a direct impact on world peace, according to observers who note that humanitarian efforts around the world will amount to nothing if low-lying countries are wiped out by rising sea levels and massive waves of refugees storm into others.

Last year, the honours went to Bangladeshi microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank.

For the Literature Prize, to be announced on Thursday, the guessing game is in full swing, with Stockholm's literary circles divided over whether the Swedish Academy will go with a dark horse or a favourite.

On Ladbrokes' online betting site -- which last year correctly had Orhan Pamuk of Turkey as the winner -- Italian novelist and essayist Claudio Magris is in top spot with 5-to-1 odds, followed by Australian poet Les Murray and US author Philip Roth.

Lesser-known writers such as French poet Maryse Conde or Estonian author and poet Jaan Kaplinski are mentioned as possible laureates, while big names cited include US author Don DeLillo and Syrian poet Adonis, the pseudonym for Ali Ahmad Said.

Others making the rounds are Italy's Antonio Tabucchi, Amos Oz of Israel, South Korean poet Ko Un and Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes.

The physics prize is to be announced on Tuesday followed by the chemistry prize on Wednesday. The economics prize will wrap up the awards on October 15.

The Nobel prizes, founded by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, were first awarded in 1901.

Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, died childless in 1896, dedicating his vast fortune to create "prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

Laureates receive a gold medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish kronor (1.53 million dollars, 1.08 million euros) which can be split between up to three winners per prize. (Reuters) - A team of stem cell researchers won the 2007 Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology on Monday, taking the first of a series of prizes awarded in October for achievements in literature, economics, sciences and peace.

Swedish businessman and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel set up the prizes awarded each year in his name in his will, which was signed in 1895.

The following are some facts about the man and the prizes:

* THE PRIZES:

-- Nobel said in his will the prizes should be given to people "who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind".

-- He ordered that most of his estate of 31 million Swedish crowns ($4.77 million) at the time should be converted into a fund and invested in safe securities.

-- The first prizes were awarded in 1901, five years after Nobel's death in San Remo, Italy.

-- His will gave five categories for prizes: physics, chemistry, medicine or physiology, literature and peace. A sixth prize, the Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted in 1968.

-- The winners get 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.54 million), either individually or shared, though no more than three people are allowed to share.
08/10/2007 - The discoverer of embryonic stem cells (ES cells) and two other scientists have won a Nobel Prize for their work to develop a 'magic wand' to modify the mouse genome.

The pioneering research by the trio has allowed scientists both to discover the function of a gene and create of animal models of human disease.

Professor Sir Martin Evans of Cardiff University shares the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with a second UK scientist, Oliver Smithies, and the Italian Mario Capecchi "for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells".

The trio have been tipped to win the Nobel for several years after winning the 2001 Lasker Award for 'Basic Medical Research'. These awards are also known as 'America's Nobels' and are one of the most coveted accolades in medical science. There are literally dozens of examples of eminent researchers winning both during their careers.

Speaking in 2001, Ira Herskowitz, a professor of genetics at the University of California in San Francisco who presented the Lasker award, said: "Building on more than one hundred years of genetic and embryological studies of the mouse, [they] have created a magic wand by which it is possible to modify any mouse gene with exquisite precision - to completely delete it or to produce a specifically altered form of the gene."

This breakthrough, at long last, provided scientists with the ability to link a mammalian gene to its function. This is particularly important since the sequencing of the human genome and also lets researchers restore the function of a defective gene. Thanks to their work, scientists now know much more about mammalian physiology, for example how the human immune system works.

Not only that, but the ability to create mice with specific genes 'knocked out', has led to the creation of mice with versions of human diseases such as cycstic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, atherosclerosis, and many others, explained Herskowitz. These models can then be used to follow the course of a disease, which is crucial in discovering and testing new drugs.

"The ability to precisely tailor mouse genes has completely revolutionized the practice of biomedical science for the last decade and is likely to become even more important in the decades to come," she said.

During their work, Capecchi and Smithies found a way to target specific genes in cultured animal cells. The problem was how to produce mice with the same characteristics. Thanks to his work with Matt Kaufman, Evans provided the answer. In 1981, Evans and Kaufman were the first to isolate ES cells - along with
US scientist Gail Martin also achieved the same feat independently.

Evans found that if the ES cells were genetically manipulated, the changes would also be present in progeny mice. The importance of this discovery was realised immediately by Smithies and Cepecchi,