October 11, 2007

Mice Men win Nobel Medicine Prize

Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The three are Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies from the States and Martin Evans from the UK, won the prize for their work in the filed of biomedical research.

It was the trios work in the creation of what they termed “Knockout Mice” which are created when the embryos are manipulated to replicate human diseases. This work has been named gene targeting, but it more commonly goes under the name Knockout, hence the title.

Gene targeting has had an impact on the understanding of gene functions and what the benefits would be to humans.

Source [News.COM]