Three American scientists won the 2009 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for their discovery of how chromosomes are copied and protected against degradation, the prize-awarding institute said today.
Australian-born Elizabeth Blackburn, British-born Jack Szostak and Carol Greider won the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns (€975,000), Sweden's Karolinska Institute said.
The institute said the three had "solved a major problem in biology", namely how chromosomes were copied completely during cell division and protected against degradation.
Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievement in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.
Reuters