nobel prize

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) ― U.S. citizens Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans won the 2007 Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for groundbreaking discoveries that led to a technique for manipulating mouse genes.

The widely used process has helped scientists use mice to study heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis and other diseases.

Capecchi, 70, who was born in Italy, is at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Smithies, 82, born in Britain, is at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Evans is at Cardiff University in England.

They were honored for a technique called gene targeting, which lets scientists inactivate or modify particular genes in mice. That in turn lets them study how those genes affect health and disease.

The first mice with genes manipulated in this way were announced in 1989. More than 10,000 different genes in mice have been studied in this way, the Nobel committee said. That's about half the genes the rodents have.

"Gene targeting has pervaded all fields of biomedicine. Its impact on the understanding of gene function and its benefits to mankind will continue to increase over many years to come," the award citation said.

Capecchi's work has uncovered the roles of genes involved in organ development in mammals, the committee said. Evans has developed strains of gene-altered mice to study cystic fibrosis, and Smithies has created strains to study such conditions as high blood pressure and heart disease.

The medicine prize was the first of the six prestigious awards to be announced this year. The others are chemistry, physics, literature, peace and economics.

The prizes are handed out every year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of award founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

Last year, the Nobel Prize in medicine went to Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for discovering RNA interference, a process that can silence specific genes.

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 STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) ― American scientists who discovered an enzyme that broke new ground in research on cancer and aging are among potential candidates for the Nobel Prize in medicine, the first of six prestigious awards to be announced by the Nobel committees.

Another possible winner of Monday's $1.54 million medicine prize is a British researcher who discovered genetic fingerprinting that has helped solve crimes and settle paternity disputes.

The secretive Nobel committee at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute will announce the winner after a final vote Monday morning, but won't even say who's on the short list before then.

"We have been working on this since February," said Hans Jornvall, secretary of the Nobel committee that reviews research nominated for the award.

Last year, the Nobel Prize in medicine went to Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for discovering RNA interference, a process that can silence specific genes.

American researchers Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak have figured prominently in Nobel speculation in recent years for predicting and discovering an enzyme called telomerase.

Their work set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase to sustain their uncontrolled growth. Scientists are studying whether drugs that block the enzyme can fight the disease. In addition, scientists believe that the DNA erosion the enzyme repairs might play a role in age-related illnesses.

Sir Alec Jeffreys of the University of Leicester also is often mentioned by experts as a possible candidate. Jeffreys found in 1984 that a DNA sample could be linked to the person it came from ― a finding that has come into play in court cases in which DNA evidence has exonerated convicted murderers.

It has also been used to help identify the victims of mass disasters, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington.

Karin Bojs, science editor at the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter ― who correctly guessed two of last year's Nobel Prizes ― predicted that the medicine award would go to American David Julius and Israeli Baruch Minke for research on how the human body reacts to heat and pain.

Thomson Scientific, a unit of the U.S.-based Thomson Corp., singled out five possible candidates, including neuroscientist Fred H. Gage, who discovered that humans can develop new brain cells as adults.

Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in his will in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. The economics prize is technically not a Nobel but a 1968 creation of Sweden's central bank.

The prizes are handed out every year on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Nobel left few instructions on how to select winners, only that the prizes should honor those who "shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

Jornvall said medicine winners must have made an important discovery ― they are not awarded for a body of research.

"If it's not possible to define what the discovery is, then it's going to be hard," he said.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. --A professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is among this year's winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Oliver Smithies was named Monday as one of the three honorees, chosen for developing a technology for manipulating genes in mice. The process, known as gene targeting, has been used to help study such diseases as cystic fibrosis, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Smithies told The Associated Press getting award was "very gratifying." After working on the research for more than 20 years, he said it's "rather enjoyable being recognized at this level."

Smithies, 82, is an excellence professor at North Carolina's school of medicine and a member of the national Institute of Medicine.

He has won many other honors for his research, including the 2001 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, which is often called "America's Nobel."

Smithies said he hopes winning the Nobel Prize will make it easier to secure funding for other work. Speaking early Monday, Smithies said he had no immediate plans to celebrate the award.

"I'm still feeling sleepy," he said.

Smithies was honored along with Mario R. Capecchi, 70, who was born in Italy and is now based at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and Briton Sir Martin J. Evans, who is at Cardiff University in England.