Nobel Prize awards

This years Nobel Prizes for Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine have been announced by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with prizes going to work on gene silencing, RNA structure and the origin of stars

George Smoot of the University of California was awarded the Physics prize

The Physiology or Medicine Prize went jointly to Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for their discovery that specific genes can be silenced by using double stranded RNA. Instructions from our genome are conveyed by messenger RNA (mRNA). In 1998 Fire and Mello, both from the US, published their discovery of a mechanism that can degrade mRNA from a specific gene. This mechanism, RNA interference, clarified many confusing and contradictory experimental observations and revealed a natural mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information.

The Physics Prize was awarded to John C. Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre and George F. Smoot of the University of California for work that looks back into the infancy of the Universe and attempts to gain some understanding of the origin of galaxies and stars. The work was based on measurements made with the help of the COBE satellite launched by NASA in 1989. The two astrophysicists from the US were able to image the infant universe, revealing a pattern of miniscule temperature variations which evolved into the universe we see today. “At the time captured in our images, the currently observable universe was smaller than the smallest dot on your TV screen,” Smoot said, “and less time had passed than it takes for light to cross that dot.”

The Chemistry Prize went to Roger Kornberg of Stanford University for being the first to create an accurate picture of how transcription – an important part of the mechanism of turning genetic information into proteins – works at a molecular level. Kornberg's contribution has culminated in his creation of detailed crystallographic pictures describing the transcription apparatus in full in a eukaryotic cell. His pictures show the new RNA-strand gradually developing, as well as the role of several other molecules necessary for the transcription process. The pictures are so detailed that separate atoms can be distinguished and this makes it possible to understand the mechanisms of transcription and how it is regulated.