Trio win Nobel Medicine Prize for work on cells, oxygen
Stockholm: US researchers William Kaelin and Gregg Semenza and Britain's Peter Ratcliffe on Monday shared the Nobel Medicine Prize for discoveries on how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability, the Nobel Assembly said.
"They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function," the jury said.
Their research has "paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and many other diseases."
The jury said the trio had identified molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen, which is central to a large number of diseases.
"Intense ongoing efforts in academic laboratories and pharmaceutical companies are now focused on developing drugs that can interfere with different disease states by either activating, or blocking, the oxygen-sensing machinery," the jury said.
Kaelin works at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the US, while Semenza is director of the Vascular Research Program at the John Hopkins Institute for Cell Engineering.
Ratcliffe is director of clinical research at the Francis Crick Institute in London, and director of the Target Discovery Institute in Oxford.
The three will share the Nobel prize sum of nine million Swedish kronor (about USD 914,000).
They will receive their prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament.
Last year, the honour went to immunologists James Allison of the US and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, for figuring out how to release the immune system's brakes to allow it to attack cancer cells more efficiently.
The winners of this year's Physics Prize will be revealed on Tuesday, followed by the Chemistry Prize on Wednesday.
The Literature Prize will be announced on Thursday, with two laureates to be crowned after a sexual harassment scandal forced the Swedish Academy to postpone the 2018 award, for the first time in 70 years.
The Peace Prize will follow on Friday, with bookies predicting a win for Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg on betting sites such as Ladbrokes.
The Economics Prize will wrap up the Nobel prize season on Monday, October 14.
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Fake IAS officer among 5 held at Indo-Nepal border attempting to cross sides
Bahraich (UP) (PTI): Five persons, including a man posing as an IAS officer, were arrested by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) at the India-Nepal Rupaideha border in Bahraich district while allegedly attempting to enter the neighbouring country in a vehicle that had a red-blue beacon and hooter, police said on Monday.
Circle Officer of Nanpara, Pahup Kumar Singh, told reporters that the incident occurred around 7.30 pm on Sunday when an Innova Crysta with a Uttar Pradesh registration plate and flashing beacon was stopped by SSB personnel at the border during routine checks.
During questioning, one of the occupants identified himself as Dharmendra and claimed to be an IAS officer posted at the Lucknow Secretariat.
However, the SSB, Rupaideha police and other security agencies conducted a detailed inquiry and found that none of them was an IAS officer, nor were they authorised to use a red-blue beacon, the officer said.
The vehicle was registered in Lucknow in the name of a firm, Priya Agencies, owned by the wife of the accused Dharmendra, he added.
The arrested persons were identified as Dharmendra Singh, Shubham Bajpai, Anmol Singh, Sachin Singh and Swapnal Sahay, all residents of Lucknow.
During interrogation, they admitted they were heading to casinos in Nepal to gamble.
Police recovered Rs 2.17 lakh in cash, six mobile phones, an electronic chip device and a power bank from their possession. A case has been registered against them under Section 319 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and further investigation is underway, Singh said.
