Nobel Chemistry Awarded for DNA Work

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Three scientists from Sweden, the U.S. and Turkey won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for showing how cells repair damaged DNA, work that can be used to develop new cancer treatments.

Swedish scientist Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Modrich and U.S.-Turkish national Aziz Sancar shared the 8 million Swedish kronor (about $960,000) award.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said their work on DNA repair "has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions." Their findings can be used for the development of new cancer treatments, among other things, the academy said.

Lindahl, 77, is an emeritus group leader at Francis Crick Institute and Emeritus director of Cancer Research UK at Clare Hall Laboratory in Britain.

Modrich, born in 1946, is an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina.

Sancar, 69, is a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Speaking by phone to a news conference in Stockholm, Lindahl said "it was a surprise" to win the award.

Our DNA, the molecule that contains our genes, is constantly under assault from ultraviolet rays from the sun and carcinogenic substances.

But it was thought to be a stable molecule until the 1970s when Lindahl showed that it decays at a rate that seemed incompatible with human life.

He realized that there must a repair mechanism, opening a new field of research, the academy said.

Working at Yale University, Sancar mapped the mechanism that cells use to repair UV-damaged DNA, while Modrich showed how the cell corrects errors when DNA is replicated during cell division.

The academy said their research "has not only deepened our knowledge of how we function, but could also lead to the development of life-saving treatments."

The award will be handed out along with the other Nobel Prizes on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.

This year's medicine prize went to scientists from Japan, the U.S. and China who discovered drugs to fight malaria and other tropical diseases. Japanese and Canadian scientists won the physics prize for discovering that tiny particles called neutrinos have mass.

The Nobel announcements continue with literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.

(KA)