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Nobel Prize winners’ cell research sheds light on diabetes, Alzheimer’s
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The Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine 2013 was awarded to three scientists for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in cells, according to a press release.
According to the Nobel Prize committee, each of the researchers’ work has implications for neurological and conditions affecting the endocrinologic system.
James E. Rothman, PhD, the Fergus F. Wallace professor of cell biology and professor of chemistry and residential college associate fellow in faculty of arts and sciences, and chairman of the department of cell biology and director of the Nanobiology Institute at Yale University, identified genes that reveal an ancient evolutionary origin of the cell transport system.
Randy W. Schekman, PhD, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkley and an adjunct professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, identified three classes of genes that control various factors of the cell’s transport system.
Thomas C. Südhof, MD, the Avram Goldstein professor in the school of medicine and professor of neurology and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences of Stanford University, identified molecular machinery that responds to an influx of calcium ions and directs neighbor proteins to rapidly bind to the outer membrane of the nerve cells.
These cell system discoveries are relevant to neurological and immunological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, according to the press release.
“Through their discoveries, Rothman, Schekman and Südhof have revealed the exquisitely precise control system for the transport and delivery of cellular cargo,” the committee said.
For more information:
The announcement of the 2013 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Accessed Oct. 7, 2013.