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back to article Trio take Nobel Prize in Chemistry for ‘pioneering’ DNA repair study

The chemistry Nobel Prize has been awarded to Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich, and Aziz Sancar, with a citation "for mechanistic studies of DNA repair". Genetic damage is the most significant existential threat facing life, as the integrity of genetic information is fundamental to its continued existence. "To counteract this …

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  1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

    Entertaining

    Both key articles were not published in Cell. That is rather entertaining.

    As the saying went in the days when I was still doing mol biol - publish once in Cell, you can retire after that. Looking at the example that was not quite right - you can get a Nobel Prize (and retire) by publishing your key work in something with a significantly lower impact index. If your work is good it will be quoted an insane amount of times anyway.

    0 1 Reply
    1. MondoMan
      Reply Icon

      Re: Entertaining

      Actually, according to the Nobel scientific background sheet,

      1) Sancar's early key paper WAS published in Cell (Sancar, A. and W.D. Rupp, A novel repair enzyme: UVRABC excision nuclease of Escherichia coli cuts a DNA strand on both sides of the damaged region. Cell, 1983. 33(1): p. 249-60.)

      2) One of Lindahl's two early key papers was published in Nature (Lindahl, T., New class of enzymes acting on damaged DNA. Nature, 1976. 259(5538): p. 64-6.)

      3) Modrich's key paper was in Science (61. Lahue, R.S., K.G. Au, and P. Modrich, DNA mismatch correction in a defined system. Science, 1989. 245(4914): p. 160-4)

      The Annual Review of Biochemistry articles are likely summing-up review articles written once the systems had been sorted out.

      I was interested to see Phil Hanawalt acknowledged in the scientific background document as another important pioneer in understanding DNA repair mechanisms. I met him a few times way back when I was in college, but I was never really that interested in studying single-celled organisms. The scientific background document (and 25 years of advances in understanding cancer) show how DNA repair has turned out to be central to many areas of biological research.

      3 0 Reply
  2. hatti

    Hopefully

    DNA repair could assist me with re-igniting the other half of my wit

    3 0 Reply
    1. Frumious Bandersnatch
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      Re: Hopefully

      DNA repair could assist me with re-igniting the other half of my wit

      Sorry to say, but DNA is dead and he's not coming back. So no new hitchhiker or dirk gently books to inspire us, unfortunately.

      1 0 Reply
  3. Martin Budden Silver badge

    DNA is an inherently unstable molecule, subject to decay even under physiological conditions

    which makes it even more amazing that life somehow started from.... well nobody knows for sure what from. This should excite both scientists and creationists*.

    *yes I do consider these two groups to be mutually exclusive.

    1 0 Reply

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