Gene scientists scoop Nobel prize

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STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Two Britons and an American have won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discoveries that have shed light on diseases like AIDS as well as strokes.

Britons Sydney Brenner and John E. Sulston and American H. Robert Horvitz received the award for discoveries into the "genetic regulation of organ development and programmed cell death." a statement from the Nobel office said.

The announcement opened a week of Nobel Prizes that culminates on Friday with the prestigious peace prize, the only one to be unveiled in Oslo, Norway.

"The Laureates have identified key genes regulating organ development and programmed cell death and have shown that corresponding genes exist in higher species, including man," a Nobel news release read.

"The discoveries are important for medical research and have shed new light on the pathogenesis of many diseases."

Knowledge about cell deaths "has helped us to understand the mechanisms by which some viruses and bacteria invade our cells," the statement continued.

"We also know that in AIDS, neurodegenerative diseases, stroke and myocardial infarction, cells are lost as a result of excessive cell death.

"Other diseases, like autoimmune conditions and cancer, are characterised by a reduction in cell death, leading to the survival of cells normally destined to die," the release said.

Brenner, 75, is a researcher at the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California. Sulston, 60, is with the Sanger Centre in Cambridge, England while Horvitz, 55, is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The physics Nobel award will be announced on Tuesday and the chemistry and economics awards Wednesday in the Swedish capital.

The award committees make their decisions in deep secrecy and other candidates who were considered are not publicly revealed for 50 years

The only public hints are for the peace prize.

President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were nominated for leading the war against terrorism, the Associated Press reports, but are now seen as unlikely winners with the possibility of military action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Among the nominees are believed to be Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has sought to unify his country after the hard-line Taliban was ousted by U.S.-led airstrikes, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the Salvation Army and the U.S. Peace Corps.

As in years past, the date for the literature prize has not been set. But it always falls on a Thursday, usually the same week as the other awards.

Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, left only vague guidelines in his will establishing the prizes, first awarded in 1901.

For the medical prize, he simply stated the winner "shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine."

The 18 lifetime members of the Swedish Academy who choose the literature laureate make their final decision at one of their weekly meetings, only setting the date early in the same week to keep the world guessing.

Kaj Schueler, a literary editor at Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, predicted the academy's choice would be a surprise since last year's award went to perennial favourite V.S. Naipaul.

"I also think it's time for them to pick a poet," Schueler told The Associated Press, declining to single out any names. "The last poet they had was the Polish writer Wislawa Szymborska in 1996. since they they've had playwrights and prose writers."

The Nobel Assembly at the world-renowned Karolinska Institute, which selects the medicine prize winner, invites nominations from previous recipients, professors of medicine and other professionals worldwide before whittling down its choices in the fall.

Last year's winners were Leland H. Hartwell of the U.S. and R. Timothy Hunt and Paul M. Nurse from Britain for discovering key regulators of the process that lets cells divide, which is expected to lead to new cancer treatments.

The awards always are presented on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

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