American scientists win Noble Prize for chromosome research

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Nobel prize - Sputnik International
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This year's Nobel Prize for medicine has been given to three U.S. scientists for their research into how the human body protects chromosomes.

STOCKHOLM, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - This year's Nobel Prize for medicine has been given to three U.S. scientists for their research into how the human body protects chromosomes.

Elizabeth Blackburn, Americans Carol Greider and Jack Szostack were recognized "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

Telomeres are crucial to the life of the cell. They are located at the ends of chromosomes in a cell and protect cells from accidentally becoming attached to each other. The name "telomere" is derived from the Greek nouns "telos", meaning "end" and "meros", meaning "part".

Russian scientist Alexei Olovnikov was the first to assume such a process inside human cells in 1971. In 1972, American molecular biologist James Watson named this phenomenon the "end replication problem".

The American scientists are to share a 10-million Swedish kronor (over $1.42 million this year) prize for their discovery.

The Nobel Prizes, founded by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, were first awarded in 1901.

Last year, the Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to German virologist Harald zur Hausen, and French virologists Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for the discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer and the discovery of human immunodeficiency virus.

 

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