Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Be Announced; Watchers Look to RNA Interference
Nobels aren't usually market movers, tho if this speculation is true, I would speculate that it might move some of the better know RNAi cos. a little. Not speculating myself yet.
Doc
By Matt Moore Associated Press Writer
Published: Oct 6, 2004
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - If past winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry are any consideration, this year's will likely come from either the United States, Japan or both.
Since 1992, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has always included Americans among the laureates. From 2000 to 2002, Japanese researchers also shared in the awards.
The academy in Stockholm already has decided this year's choice, but won't announce it until Wednesday.
Like the physics prize, Nobel watchers concede that speculation about who may win is not a science and not easy, largely because the subject matter is complex and technical.
But, given the nature of the prizes and the fact that the country that hosts them makes wondering about them a national pastime, some names and topics have risen to the surface.
The winner could be involved in the search and development of RNA.
RNA was once thought to act only as a messenger that followed the instructions of DNA in making amino acids within a cell. But new studies show that forms of RNA can also direct and alter the expression of genes, influencing stem cells and embryonic development.
Likely candidates mentioned this week include Andrew Fire of Johns Hopkins University and Craig Mello of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in New York, the co-discoverers of RNA interference and the author of an article about the process that appeared in the journal Nature in 1998.
Fire's work on RNA interference, or RNAi, was profound enough to garner the German Cancer Research Center's Meyenburg Prize. The pair also received the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Award in microbiology in 2003.
The pair's research has invented new ways of making genes inactive by manipulating the RNA.
Last year's winners were Peter Agre, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, and Roderick MacKinnon of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at The Rockefeller University in New York.
They were awarded for their work and studies of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, which helps to illuminate diseases of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.
This year's award announcements began Monday with the Nobel Prize in medicine going to Americans Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck.
Axel and Buck were selected by a committee at Stockholm's Karolinska Institutet for their work on the sense of smell.
They clarified the intricate biological pathway from the nose to the brain that lets people sense smells.
On Tuesday, Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczek won the physics prize for their explanation of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus. Their work has helped science get closer to "a theory for everything," the academy said in awarding the prize.
The winner of the literature prize will be announced Thursday. The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel will be announced Oct. 11.
The winner of the coveted peace prize - the only one not awarded in Sweden - will be announced Friday in Oslo, Norway.
The prizes, which include a $1.3 million check, a gold medal and a diploma, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.
---
On the Net:
Nobel Prizes: nobelprize.org
AP-ES-10-06-04 0235EDT
ap.tbo.com |
