Monday, October 5, 2020

Nobel

 

Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded to Scientists Who Discovered Hepatitis C Virus - The New York Times
BREAKING

Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded to Scientists Who Discovered Hepatitis C Virus

Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice were jointly honored for their decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem.

Credit...Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Dr. Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice on Monday for the discovery of hepatitis C virus, a breakthrough the Nobel Assembly said had “made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives.”

The Nobel Assembly announced the prize at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

“For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating hepatitis C virus from the world population,” the committee said in a statement.

Dr. Alter, an American, is a medical researcher for the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.

Dr. Houghton, born in Britain, is the Li Ka Shing professor of virology at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is also director of the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute at the university.

Dr. Rice, born in Sacramento, is a professor at Rockefeller University in New York. From 2001 to 2018, he was the scientific and executive director at the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C at the university.

The prize was awarded to William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for discoveries about how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability. These cellular mechanisms control, for example, adaptation to high altitudes and how cancer cells manage to hijack oxygen.

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