2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Mario R. Capecchi, Sir Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies. The prize was announced by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm on 8 October 2007.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Mario R. Capecchi was born in 1937 in Verona, Italy, and is affiliated with the University of Utah, Salt Lake City and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Sir Martin J. Evans was born in 1941 in Stroud, United Kingdom, and is affiliated with Cardiff University, Cardiff. Oliver Smithies was born in 1925 in Halifax, United Kingdom, and is affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Why it matters

Their methods for changing specific genes in mice, known as gene targeting, have allowed scientists to study the role of genes in health and disease. Evans did much of his work in Cambridge and later at Cardiff University.

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.