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All three were awarded for “their decisive contribution to the fight against this hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer,” explained the Nobel jury, in the midst of a global race to find the secrets of another viral pandemic , that of COVID-19.
In the late 1970s, Harvey Alter, who is now 85 years old, identified that a mysterious liver infection occurred during transfusions, and it was neither hepatitis A nor hepatitis B, the jury noted.
Years later, eIn 1989, Michael Houghton and his team were credited with discovering the genetic sequence of the virus. As for Charles Rice, 68, toended for years the way in which the virus replicatesba, in research that led to the emergence of a revolutionary new treatment in the early 2010s, sofosbuvir.
The award is the first directly related to a virus since 2008, which recognized the French discoverers of AIDS, Françoise Berré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, and a pioneer of the human papillomavirus, the German Harald zur Hausen.
After a first prize, that of Chemistry, to two virologists in 1946, this Nobel Prize joins the 17 Nobel Prize directly or indirectly linked to work on viruses.
With this 111th Nobel Prize in Medicine, there are already 222 winners of the “physiology or medicine” prize since its creation, including only 12 women.
From the discovery more than half a century ago of two types of lymphocytes, B and T, essential in the understanding of our immune system, to the advance of the “molecular scissors” in genetics in 2010, through breast cancer research , several great medical discoveries – and their authors – were cited by experts as potential Nobel laureates this year.
This is the Swedish Academy’s announcement regarding the winners, with praise for the discoverers of the virus that causes hepatitis C:
“For the first time in history, we can cure hepatitis C. The discoveries of the 2020 Nobel Prize winners in Medicine revealed the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made it possible to develop blood tests and new medicines,” says the Nobel committee. pic.twitter.com/CpwfqTwTpg
– Nora Bär (@norabar) October 5, 2020
The nomination process is completely secret and the Swedish Academy of Sciences does not disclose any of the hundreds of nominations it receives each year from qualified individuals from around the world.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded the Americans Willial Kaelin and Gregg Semenza, as well as the British Peter Ratcliffe. They discovered, starting in the 1990s, how cells throughout the body detect and adapt to various oxygen levels. The first therapeutic applications came out in the mid-2000s, especially against cancer.
The Nobel Prize winners will be announced as planned this week, but the coronavirus has caused the face-to-face ceremony to be canceled on December 10 in Stockholm, for the first time since 1944.
The laureates, who share close to one million euros ($ 1.17 million), will receive their awards in their countries of residence, possibly through a Swedish embassy or at their universities.
This 2020 edition of the Nobel Prizes, which continues on Tuesday with that of Physics and on Wednesday with that of Chemistry, is fraught with uncertainty.
For the Nobel Peace Prize, press freedom (Reporters without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists …) or the climate, with the Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future (Friday for the future), are among the possible candidates to succeed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Others predict an award for a UN body, such as the World Health Organization, or for Fawzia Koofi from Afghanistan.
For Literature, the critics consulted this year by the AFP mention a fortnight of names, with profiles that They range from the American-Caribbean Jamaica Kincaid to the Albanian Ismail Kadaré, through Canadian Anne Carson.
Unless Michel Houellebecq or Maryse Condé, also mentioned, achieve the 16th prize for France, which leads the number of winners in literature.
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