This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the Nobel Prizes and the committee for Physiology or Medicine has chosen to honor three scientists who have elucidated genes and proteins crucial to cell-cycle control. Leland Hartwell, president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, is widely credited with pioneering the field through studies in baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. He has identified over 100 cell-division cycle (CDC) genes including those that stop and start the cell-division process.
Tim Hunt
Two honors went to British researchers at the Imperial Cancer Research Foundation: Sir Paul Nurse (see page 1172) has isolated genes corresponding to those that Hartwell found in human cells and Tim Hunt discovered cyclin proteins in the cytoplasm which associate with kinases to control the passage of a cell through the cell cycle. The winners share 1 million Swedish krona ($96 million). For more details, see http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/2001/press.html.
