Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 10, 1995 TAG: 9510100077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN LENGTH: Medium
They were chosen for discoveries about how genes control early embryonic development, said the medicine prize committee at Sweden's Karolinska Institute.
The winners are Edward B. Lewis, 77, of California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif.; Eric F. Wieschaus, 48, of Princeton University; and Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard, 52, of the Max-Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tuebingen, Germany.
``Together, these three scientists have achieved a breakthrough that will help explain congenital malformations in man,'' the citation said.
``They let the genie out of the bottle. Their research has stimulated other research in many other fields,'' award committee member Bjorn Vennstrom, a professor at the Karolinska Institute, said at a news conference.
The scientists used the lowly fruit fly, well-known to generations of biology students, as the basis for their experiments. Nuesslein-Volhard and Wieschaus identified a number of genes that are key in determining the body plan and formation of body segments. Lewis, who worked independently, investigated how genes could control development of individual body segments into specialized organs.
In people, flaws in such genes are probably responsible for some early miscarriages and some of the roughly 40 percent of birth defects for which no cause is known, the Nobel citation said.
Vennstrom said the work has helped give scientists and doctors a better understanding of how and why the body aborts embryos - a common occurrence for first-time mothers. Only about six of 20 fertilizations lead to children, and the abundance of miscarriages long has been an enigma, Vennstrom said.
by CNB