Trio Wins Chemistry Nobel for DNA Repair Work

AFP





Sweden's Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich of the US and Aziz Sancar, a Turkish-American, won the 2015 Nobel Chemistry Prize on Wednesday for work on how cells repair damaged DNA.The three opened a dazzling frontier in medicine by unveiling how the body repairs DNA mutations that can cause sickness and contribute to ageing, the Nobel jury said. “Their systematic work has made a decisive contribution to the understanding of how the living cell functions as well as providing knowledge about the molecular causes of several heredi tary diseases and about mechanisms behind both cancer development and ageing,“ the panel said.
DNA is the chemical code for making and sustaining life. When cells divide, molecular machines seek to replicate the code perfectly , but random slipups in their work can cause the daughter cells to die or malfunction. DNA can also be damaged by strong sunlight and other environmental factors. But there is a swarm of proteins a molecular repair kit ­ designed to monitor the process. It proof-reads the code and repairs damage.
The three were lauded for mapping these processes, starting with Lindahl, who identified so-called repair enzymes ­ the basics in the toolbox. Sancar, born in Savur, Turkey, discovered the mechanisms used by cells to fix damage by ultraviolet radiation. Modrich laid bare a complex DNA-mending process called mismatch repair.
Source: Economic Times, 8-10-2010