Two Americans and a British scientist won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering how the body’s cells sense and react to oxygen levels, work that has paved the way for new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and other diseases, the Nobel Committee said.
William Kaelin Jr of Harvard University, Gregg Semenza of Johns Hopkins University and Peter Ratcliffe at the Francis Crick Institute in Britain and Oxford University are to share the 9 million kronor (US$918,000) cash award, the Karolinska Institute said.
It is the 110th time the prize has been awarded since 1901.
Photo: AFP
Their work has “greatly expanded our knowledge of how physiological response makes life possible,” the committee said, adding that the scientists identified the biological machinery that regulates how genes respond to varying levels of oxygen.
That response is key to things like producing red blood cells, generating new blood vessels and fine-tuning the immune system.
The Nobel Committee said scientists are focused on developing drugs that can treat diseases by either activating or blocking the body’s oxygen-sensing machinery.
The oxygen response is hijacked by cancer cells, for example, which stimulate formation of blood vessels to help themselves grow.
People with kidney failure often get hormonal treatments for anemia, but the work of the new laureates points the way toward new treatments, Nils-Goran Larsson of the Nobel committee said.
Reached at his home, Kaelin said he was half-asleep yesterday morning when the telephone rang. It was Stockholm.
“I was aware as a scientist that if you get a phone call at 5am with too many digits, it’s sometimes very good news, and my heart started racing. It was all a bit surreal,” he said.
Kaelin said he is not sure yet how he will spend the prize money, but “obviously I’ll try to put it to some good cause.”
Ratcliffe told Sweden’s news agency TT that “when I started my research I also had no idea that it would result in this.”
The impact of oxygen on cells “has not always been a trendy area to research, and some people have doubted them during the journey,” he said.
The physics prize is to be handed out today, followed by the chemistry prize tomorrow.
The literature prizes — one for this year and one for last year — are to be awarded on Thursday, the peace prize is to be announced on Friday and the economics prize is to be awarded on Monday next week.
The laureates are to receive their awards at ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique