October 5, 2020 5:53:18 pm
Two Americans and a British scientist received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for their contribution to the identification of the hepatitis C virus, which causes cirrhosis and liver cancer.
In announcing the award in Stockholm, the Nobel Committee said that the work of Harvey Alter, Charles Rice and Michael Houghton has helped explain a major source of blood-borne hepatitis that could not be explained by the hepatitis A and B viruses. .
BREAKING NEWS:
2020 #Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been jointly awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice “for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus.” pic.twitter.com/MDHPmbiFmS– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 5, 2020
The committee also said that the work of these three scientists revealed the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made possible blood tests and new drugs that have saved millions of lives.
Who are these winners
Harvey James Alter
Born in 1935, Harvey J Alter is an American medical researcher who has gained worldwide recognition for his work related to the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. According to the Nobel Committee, the 85-year-old man conducted his award-winning studies at the National Institutes of US Health at Bethesda, where it remains active to date.
Alter received his medical degree from the University of Rochester, New York, and completed his graduate training in Medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, and within the hospital system of the University of Washington in Seattle. Later he also became a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health.
A proliferative researcher, Alter has more than 350 publications in international peer-reviewed journals.
Charles rice
Charle Rice was born in 1952 in Sacramento, California. He worked on hepatitis at Washington University in St. Louis.
He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and was also president of the American Society for Virology from 2002 to 2003.
In 2016, Rice received the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, along with Ralf FW Bartenschlager and Michael J. Sofia. The 68-year-old currently works at the Rockefeller University in New York.
Michael Houghton
Born in 1950, British scientist Michael Houghton studied at Chiron Corporation in California before transferring to the University of Alberta in Canada.
Houghton is also a co-author of a series of studies published in 1989-90 that identified antibodies to hepatitis C in the blood. He has also received the Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award (1992), the Robert Koch Award (1993), and the International Hepatitis Foundation Award (1998).
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