2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof. The prize was announced by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm on 7 October 2013.

The citation

The citation reads: "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

James E. Rothman was born in 1950 in Haverhill, the United States, and is affiliated with Yale University, New Haven. Randy W. Schekman was born in 1948 in St. Paul, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Thomas C. Südhof was born in 1955 in Göttingen, Germany, and is affiliated with Stanford University, Stanford and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Why it matters

Their discoveries explain how cells package and deliver molecules such as hormones to the right place at the right time. Faults in this system are linked to diabetes and neurological disorders.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 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.