Three U.S.-based scientists won the 2013 Nobel medicine prize on Monday for their work on how hormones and enzymes are transported within and outside cells, giving insight into diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Alfred Nobel - the Man behind the Nobel Prize
- Spoke 5 languages fluently at the age of 17.
- Worked as chemist, engineer, industrialist.
- Invented dynamite.
- Left 31 million SEK (today about 265 million dollar) to fund the Nobel Prizes.
Alfred Nobel's laboratory in Bofors, Sweden. |
The Nobel Assembly said the three "have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system." |
Vesicle traffic' research wins Nobel Prize |
Two Americans and a German-American won the Nobel Prize in medicine on
Monday for discovering how key substances are transported within cells, a
process involved in such important activities as brain cell
communication and the release of insulin.
Rothman, a professor at Yale University, detailed how protein machinery
allows vesicles in cells to fuse with their targets to permit the
transfer of molecular cargo.
Schekman, a professor at
the University of California, Berkeley, was honored for discovering a
set of genes required for the "vesicle traffic."
Sudhof, a professor at Stanford University, showed how vesicles are instructed precisely when to release molecules.
Schekman and Sudhof also are investigators at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Three researchers from U.S. schools have won the Nobel Prize in medicine. James Rothman and Randy Schekman share the award with Thomas Suedhof. |
They found the way "vesicles" act like a fleet of ships transporting their goods to the exact destination.
It is crucial for the way the brain communicates, the release of hormones and parts of the immune system.
The billions of cells which make up the body
are not empty blobs, instead they are packed with precise machinery. In
order for a cell to function properly it needs the right materials in
the right place at the right time.
Vesicles are tiny bubbles of fat which act as the cell's
internal shipping service. They can send material such as enzymes,
neurotransmitters and hormones, around the cell. Or they can fuse with
the outer surface of the cell and release their contents into the wider
body.
The prize committee said the findings: "Had a major impact on our
understanding of how cargo is delivered with timing and precision within
and outside the cell.
"Without this wonderfully precise organisation, the cell would lapse into chaos."
A defective vesicle transport system is implicated in diabetes and brain disorders.
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