UK scientist among Nobel Prize winners for 3D molecule imaging
Written by News on 04/10/2017
A British scientist is one of three researchers who have been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a method to produce 3D images of the molecules of life.
Richard Henderson, 72, of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, was rewarded in Stockholm for developments in electron microscopy.
The cryo-electron microscopy method, developed with Joachim Frank, 77, of New York’s Columbia University, and Jacques Dubochet, 75, of Switzerland’s University of Lausanne, has implications for medicine shifting focus from organs to processes in cells.
The Nobel committee hailed the group’s technology, saying it had "taken biochemistry into a new era".
The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said the scientists’ discovery allowed researchers to "freeze biomolecules" mid-movement and analyse processes that had not been seen before.
The body said the development was "decisive for both the basic understanding of life’s chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals".
The 9m Swedish kronor (£830,000) prize, which will be shared amongst the three, rewards the researchers for their major advances in studying the extremely small bits of material that make up the building blocks of life.
Following the win on Wednesday, Mr Frank told reporters the method meant medicine no longer focused on organs but "looks at the processes in the cell".
The latest Nobel Prize win comes after the medicine prize went to three Americans studying circadian rhythms – Jeffrey C Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W Young.
The physics prize went to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for detecting gravitational waves.
The literature prize winner is set to be announced on Thursday and the peace prize is due to be announced on Friday.
(c) Sky News 2017: UK scientist among Nobel Prize winners for 3D molecule imaging
