William Kaelin Jr., Gregg Semenza and Peter Ratcliffe were awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine this year for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet said the trio's discoveries help explain how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function, paving the way for promising new strategies to fight diseases such as anemia and cancer.
U.S.-born Kaelin and Semenza, along with British scientist Ratcliffe, identified molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen.
The researchers' discoveries on this oxygen-sensing machinery, which switches genes on and off in response to oxygen levels, have played an important role in understanding diseases such as cancer. For example, the oxygen-regulated machinery is utilized to stimulate blood vessel formation and reshape metabolism for effective proliferation of cancer cells.
Kaelin is a professor at the department of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and at the Brigham and Women's Hospital of Harvard Medical School. He is also a member of Eli Lilly and Co.'s board.
Semenza is the C. Michael Armstrong professor of pediatrics and director of the vascular program at the Institute for Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Ratcliffe is the director of clinical research at the Francis Crick Institute in London. He is also director of the Target Discovery Institute of Oxford University's Nuffield department of medicine and a member of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research.
The annual Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine is the first of several awards to be announced Oct. 7-14. The other Nobel Prizes recognize works in physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics.
