2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello. The prize was announced by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm on 2 October 2006.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their discovery of RNA interference - gene silencing by double-stranded RNA". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Andrew Z. Fire was born in 1959 in Stanford, the United States, and is affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford. Craig C. Mello was born in 1960 in New Haven, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester.

Why it matters

The two Americans discovered a way of switching off specific genes, known as RNA interference. It has become a powerful research tool and a basis for new medicines.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.