oliver smithies

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The researchers who pioneered the creation of "designer mice" to track the role of different genes in human development and disease have won the 2007 Nobel medicine prize, Sweden's Karolinska Institute said on Monday.

The prestigious 10 million Swedish crown (755,000 pound) prize recognised Mario Capecchi, Martin Evans and Oliver Smithies for helping discover "the roles of numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease".

In 2001, the three took the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, seen as the U.S. version of the Nobel since many of its recipients have gone on to become Nobel Laureates.

Italian-born Capecchi is a U.S. citizen, as is Smithies. Both Evans, who was knighted for his contributions to science, and Smithies are British-born.

"It's certainly something that everybody would love to hear and it's marvellous news both with respect to our laboratory as well as our university," Capecchi told Reuters after hearing he had won the prize.

"What we developed is a way of modifying genes in the mouse which allows us to model human disease, study their pathology as well as ... developing new therapies."

The prize awarders said the discoveries made by the three have led to a new branch of medicine known as gene targeting -- turning mice genes on and off to determine their effect on diseases and physiological development.

"The development of gene targeting technology in the mouse has had a profound influence on medical research," said Stephen O'Rahilly, Head of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Cambridge.
The industrywide viability of General Motors' groundbreaking contract with the United Auto Workers union looks set to be tested in the coming days. And the results may also offer insight on how the role of private-equity ownership at Chrysler will resonate in Detroit.

The UAW's negotiations with Chrysler made progress over the weekend, sources familiar with the situation tell the Detroit News, but the union also seems to be bracing for confrontation, since it moved to prepare for a possible strike. The UAW set a Wednesday deadline for a tentative agreement. Its contracts with GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor all expired Sept. 14, but the latter two were extended indefinitely as the UAW bargained with GM. Those talks led to what both sides hoped would be a deal that makes the U.S. auto industry more competitive, including the expensive shift of GM's legacy health-care costs for retirees to a trust overseen by the union. But it included guarantees for workers, including commitments to keep making certain products at some plants.

Chrysler and Ford may push for different accords that better fit their needs, the News says. Chrysler, which recently started its second major restructuring since 2000, could scorn a GM concession on job security and refuse to freeze outsourcing, sources tell the News. Chrysler, The Wall Street Journal adds, already has five plants closed this week in response to soft demand for its vehicles. That could weaken the effect of any strike. Still, the UAW, which has to give the car companies 72 hours before breaking a contract, gave such notice to Chrysler on Saturday, the Journal says, meaning a strike could come as early as tomorrow.

A bigger question mark than Chrysler's particular labor needs is how much Cerberus Capital Management, its new majority owner, will go along with the management at GM -- and indeed, the negotiating practices in an industry that isn't known for revolutionary change. "Chrysler officials are expected to come to the talks with a unique list of demands, including health-care cost concessions that would put the auto maker on equal footing with GM and Ford when it comes to retiree medical-expense liabilities," the Journal reports. But "Chrysler also has indicated plans to shed certain UAW-represented units, a move that would cut against the union's effort to maintain the current level of jobs at Detroit's Big Three in return for wage and benefit concessions."

Chrysler's new management has already backed off plans for a new $700 million axle plant that would employ 900 hourly workers, Automotive News reports. After initially backing the plan, Chrysler is now taking bids from three outside suppliers to produce the axles, sources tell the publication. "That implies Chrysler may scrap the plant and its jobs," Automotive News says, and "that is unlikely to set well with the UAW."

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Iraqi Leaders' Doubts About Reconciling
Tension between the Iraqi government and its U.S. sponsors is breaking into public dispute on several fronts. While one of the main goals of the "surge" strategy introduced early this year by President Bush was to reduce violence enough for Iraq's feuding factions to reconcile, "several top Iraqi leaders say they have lost faith in that broad goal," the Washington Post reports. Iraqi leaders, acknowledging the centuries of bloodshed and historical prejudice that have split the country's Shiite and Sunni Muslims, believe the sectarian divides are "entrenched in the structure of their government, the Post says. "I don't think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such," Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd, tells the Post. "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power."

Addressing one issue that seems to unite Iraqis, even as it divides Baghdad and Washington, the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki yesterday said Iraq's investigation of the Blackwater shooting incident three weeks ago found the company's private guards "sprayed gunfire in nearly every direction, committed 'deliberate murder' and should be punished accordingly," the New York Times reports. The statement by Mr. Maliki's spokesman was the first formal indication the government has concluded what investigators have already been saying unofficially: that there is no evidence the Blackwater guards came under fire and that the shootings were unprovoked. That clashes with the company's account, and is at odds with the State Department's initial assertion, the Times notes. "This is a deliberate crime against civilians," the spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said. "It should be tried in court and the victims should be compensated."

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Costa Rica Backs Cafta
Costa Rican voters have apparently given a victory to free trade, narrowly approving a referendum on the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S. Still, the 52% backing -- with 89% of the precincts reporting -- contradicts some earlier opinion-poll results, and politicians opposing the pact want a manual recount before they concede, the Associated Press reports. "The apparent approval of Cafta capped a roller coaster couple of weeks that saw support for the pact build, plunge, and then rise again amid a dramatic series of events that included a leaked memo from pro-Cafta government officials advocating dirty tricks, the resignation of a high-level Costa Rican official and public pressure from the White House for Costa Ricans to support the agreement," the Los Angeles Times notes. "The agreement would eliminate nearly all trade barriers, such as tariffs and quotas, among the U.S. and the other six participants over the next 10 years."

The five other Central American countries in the pact, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic, have already ratified the accord, the BBC notes, and Costa Rica was the only one to hold a referendum on it. It would also be a victory for Washington, which "is keen to maintain its influence in Latin America to counter that of socialist leaders in Venezuela and Cuba," the BBC adds.

* * * Oliver Smithies was recognized today for developing a technology for manipulating genes in mice. The gene targeting process has been used to help study such diseases as cystic fibrosis, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

Smithies told The Associated Press this morning that getting award is "very gratifying." He says it's "rather enjoyable" at being recognized after working on the research for more than 20 years.

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

He won the 2001 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, often called "America's Nobel."

U.N. Corruption Watchdog in Jeopardy
Singapore's unhappiness with how a United Nations corruption watchdog has treated one of its diplomats is placing the internal antifraud team's future in doubt, The Wall Street Journal reports. Funding for the Procurement Task Force, which has identified more than $610 million in allegedly tainted contracts in the wake of the oil-for-food probe, is set to expire at the end of the year. The U.S., European Union and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon all support its renewal. But Singapore, an influential player in the General Assembly committee that determines the task force's funding, is upset with how the team treated Andrew Toh, an assistant U.N. secretary-general who was cited for mismanagement and failing to provide financial information sought by the investigative group, the Journal reports.

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U.S. Pressures Afghanistan on Poppy Spraying
The U.S. is pushing the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to renew its effort to spray herbicide on opium poppies, following the biggest opium harvest in his country's history, the New York Times reports. While Mr. Karzai has repeatedly voiced opposition to such spraying this year, Afghan officials tell the Times his administration is re-evaluating that stance. "The issue has created sharp divisions within the Afghan government, among its Western allies and even American officials of different agencies. The matter is fraught with political danger for Mr. Karzai, whose hold on power is weak," the Times says. But the White House, State Department and many other advocates of spraying view herbicides as key to cutting Afghanistan's poppy crop, which is a major source of revenue for the Taliban. "But officials said the skeptics -- who include American military and intelligence officials and European diplomats in Afghanistan -- fear that any spraying of American-made chem
icals over Afghan farms would be a boon to Taliban propagandists," since the herbicide also destroys food crops planted next to the farmers' poppies.

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A Nobel for Gene Targeting in Mice
The Nobel Assembly today awarded the physiology and medicine prize to biophysicist Mario R. Capecchi, anatomist and embryologist Sir Martin J. Evans and biochemist Oliver Smithies, for finding ways to alter the genetic make-up of mice in ways that could help treat disease in humans. The trio's groundbreaking discoveries -- while attempting to modify specific genes in mammals -- led to the creation of a technology called gene targeting, which is used to inactivate single genes and thus see what they do. "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," the Nobel Assembly says. "Gene targeting has already produced more than five hundred different mouse models of human disorders, including cardiovascular and neuro-degenerative diseases, diabetes and cancer." Mr. Capecchi is an American born in Italy, Mr. Evans a Briton and Mr. Smithies
a U.S. citizen originally from Britain.

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