2013 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE
The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to
James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for their discoveries of machinery regulating
vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells
The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three scientists who have solved the mystery
of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that
produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and
released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent
from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell
in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered
the molecular principles that govern how this cargo is delivered to the right
place at the right time in the cell.
Randy Schekman discovered a set of genes that were required for vesicle
traffic. James Rothman unravelled protein machinery that allows vesicles to
fuse with theirtargets to permit transfer of cargo. Thomas Südhof revealed how
signals instruct vesicles to release their cargo with precision.
Through their discoveries, Rothman, Schekman and Südhof have revealed the exquisitely
precise control system for the transport and delivery of cellular cargo. Disturbances
in this system have deleterious effects and contribute to conditions such as
neurological diseases, diabetes, and immunological disorders.
James E. Rothman
Born 1950 in Haverhill, Massachusetts, USA. He received his PhD from
Harvard Medical School in 1976, was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and moved in 1978 to Stanford University in
California, where he started his research on the vesicles of the cell. Rothman
has also worked at Princeton University, Memorial Sloan‐Kettering Cancer
Institute and Columbia University. In 2008, he joined the faculty of Yale
University in New Haven, Connecticut, USA, where he is currently Professor and
Chairman in the Department of Cell Biology.
Randy W. Schekman
Born 1948 in St Paul, Minnesota, USA, studied at the University of California
in Los Angeles and at Stanford University, where he obtained his PhD in 1974 under
the supervision of Arthur Kornberg (Nobel Prize 1959) and in the same
department that Rothman joined a few years later. In 1976, Schekman joined the
faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, where he is currently
Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cell biology. Schekman is also an
investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Thomas C. Südhof
Born in 1955 in Göttingen, Germany. He studied at the Georg‐August‐ Universität in
Göttingen, where he received an MD in 1982 and a Doctorate in neurochemistry
the same year. In 1983, he moved to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical
Center in Dallas, Texas, USA, as a postdoctoral fellow with Michael Brown and Joseph
Goldstein (who shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). Südhof became
an investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 1991 and was appointed Professor
of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University in 2008.
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