By Xinhua
Stockholm : Martin Evans of Britain and Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies of the US have won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine for their work on embryonic stem cell.
The trio shared the prize for “ground breaking discoveries concerning embryonic stem cells and DNA recombination in mammals,” according to the Nobel jury at the Karolinska Institute.
The international team has made significant contributions to introducing genetic changes in mice using embryonic stem cells. The discoveries are used in all areas of biomedicine, from basic research to the development of new therapies, the institute said.
The process has been used to determine why some diseases strike people at a cellular level, as well as models in mice that show how human disorders such as cardiovascular ailments, diabetes and cancer exist in, and strike, otherwise healthy people.
Capecchi, 70, was born in Italy and is a US citizen now. Both Evans, 66, and Smithies, 82, are British-born. The latter holds US citizenship.
The award committee praised their work for having helped to expand the knowledge of “numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease”.
The medicine prize was the first of the six prestigious awards to be announced this year.
The winners of the Physics Nobel will be announced Tuesday, to be followed by those for Chemistry Wednesday, Literature Thursday, Peace Friday and Economics next Monday.
The annual Nobel prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out on Dec 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite.
Nobel died childless and dedicated his vast fortune to create “prizes to those, who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.”
The prizes have been awarded since 1901. Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.53 million).