Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael Young were rewarded for "their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that regulate the circadian rhythm," announced the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
The Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded on Monday to three American researchers for their work on the biological clock, which illustrates the body's adaptation to day and night cycles as well as sleep disorders.
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, were rewarded for "their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that regulate the circadian rhythm," announced the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
The scientific term "circadian rhythm" designates one of the primary vital functions in multi-cellular living beings: it regulates sleep, eating behaviors, blood pressure and body temperature.
From the observation of flies, Jeffrey C. Hall and Michael Rosbash - who practice together at Boston's Brandeis University - and Michael W. Young of Rockefeller University in New York, isolated in 1984 a gene that controls this biological rhythm.
Hall and Rosbah later demonstrated that this gene, if functioning properly, encodes a protein that accumulates in the cells at night, and degrades during the day.
In 1994, Michael Young identified a second biological clock gene essential for the regulation of circadian rhythm.
Modern research has revealed the fundamental role of these mechanisms in health and life expectancy, as well as the harmful consequences of long-term night work.
Researcher in pajamas
Rosbash, 73, was born in Missouri and earned his doctorate in 1970 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) in Cambridge (United States).
The Nobel laureate was "shocked" by the announcement that he had won the Nobel prize, when contacted by the Swedish agency TT. "I sat down with my wife in my pajamas, I had not thought about it," he said.
The Nobel, "are the maximum ... I would have liked my mother to be alive," he added.
Hall, 72, was born in New York and was part of his career at the University of Maine in 2002. Today he is retired.
Young, 68, is originally from Miami, and teaches since 1978 at Rockefeller University.
By 2016, the Nobel Prize for Japanese researcher Yoshinori Ohsumi for his research on autophagy was crucial to understand how cells are renewed and the body's response to hunger and infection.
The Nobel Prize this year has an economic endowment of 9 million Swedish crowns (940,000 euros, US $ 1.1 million).
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine is the first of this edition. This week will follow those of Physics and Chemistry, Literature and Peace and next week the Economics.
The nuclear issue dominates in the forecasts of the Nobel Peace Prize, the only one that is delivered in Oslo, in a context of growing tension between Washington and Pyongyang after the sixth North Korean test, but also uncertainty surrounding the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, which US President Donald Trump threatened to "break".
The Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded on Monday to three American researchers for their work on the biological clock, which illustrates the body's adaptation to day and night cycles as well as sleep disorders.
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young, were rewarded for "their discoveries of the molecular mechanisms that regulate the circadian rhythm," announced the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
The scientific term "circadian rhythm" designates one of the primary vital functions in multi-cellular living beings: it regulates sleep, eating behaviors, blood pressure and body temperature.
From the observation of flies, Jeffrey C. Hall and Michael Rosbash - who practice together at Boston's Brandeis University - and Michael W. Young of Rockefeller University in New York, isolated in 1984 a gene that controls this biological rhythm.
Hall and Rosbah later demonstrated that this gene, if functioning properly, encodes a protein that accumulates in the cells at night, and degrades during the day.
In 1994, Michael Young identified a second biological clock gene essential for the regulation of circadian rhythm.
Modern research has revealed the fundamental role of these mechanisms in health and life expectancy, as well as the harmful consequences of long-term night work.
Researcher in pajamas
Rosbash, 73, was born in Missouri and earned his doctorate in 1970 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) in Cambridge (United States).
The Nobel laureate was "shocked" by the announcement that he had won the Nobel prize, when contacted by the Swedish agency TT. "I sat down with my wife in my pajamas, I had not thought about it," he said.
The Nobel, "are the maximum ... I would have liked my mother to be alive," he added.
Hall, 72, was born in New York and was part of his career at the University of Maine in 2002. Today he is retired.
Young, 68, is originally from Miami, and teaches since 1978 at Rockefeller University.
By 2016, the Nobel Prize for Japanese researcher Yoshinori Ohsumi for his research on autophagy was crucial to understand how cells are renewed and the body's response to hunger and infection.
The Nobel Prize this year has an economic endowment of 9 million Swedish crowns (940,000 euros, US $ 1.1 million).
The 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine is the first of this edition. This week will follow those of Physics and Chemistry, Literature and Peace and next week the Economics.
The nuclear issue dominates in the forecasts of the Nobel Peace Prize, the only one that is delivered in Oslo, in a context of growing tension between Washington and Pyongyang after the sixth North Korean test, but also uncertainty surrounding the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program, which US President Donald Trump threatened to "break".