The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Tomas Lindahl, Paul L. Modrich, and Aziz Sancar for their work in mapping and explaining how the cell repairs its DNA and ensures the accuracy of its genetic information.
Lindahl, who is with the Francis Crick Institute in London, was honored for his discoveries on the cellular mechanism that repairs damaged DNA. Modrich, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine in North Carolina, was recognized for showing how cells correct errors made when DNA is reproduced during cell division. Sancar, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was cited for mapping the mechanism cells use to repair damage to DNA caused by ultraviolet light.
They shared the prize of about $960,000. The Nobel prizes were established in his will by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish chemist who invented dynamite. There are Nobel prizes in chemistry, physics, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace.
"Their systematic work has made a decisive contribution to the understanding of how the living cell functions, as well as providing knowledge about the molecular causes of several hereditary diseases and about mechanisms behind both cancer development and aging," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the prize, said in a statement.
In recent years, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded for rather arcane work. Recent winners have developed glowing molecules that illuminate living cells, computer models that are used to research subtle reactions, and microscopes that peer deep into living cells to reveal their tiniest structures. This year's prize is for more basic understanding of the molecule that forms the basis of genetics and of life.
It is fitting that Lindahl works at the Francis Crick Institute. Crick was the co-discoverer, with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins, of the DNA molecule. They won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1962.
