American Scientist 'Thrilled' by Nobel Prize
Updated 9:52 AM ET October 9, 2000
NEW YORK (Reuters) - American scientist Paul Greengard
said he was ``thrilled'' to
win the Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday and receive
recognition for 40 years of
research into the mysteries of how nerve cells
communicate.
Greengard of New York's Rockefeller University, Eric
Kandel of New York's Columbia
University and Swede Arvid Carlsson, formerly of the
University of Gothenburg,
shared the prize for studies on how messages move around
the nervous system.
``I was extremely thrilled,'' Greengard said in a
telephone interview with CNN.
Asked whether he was expecting to win the prize,
Greengard, 74, said: ``No I
wasn't.''
Messages between nerve cells in the brain, which number
more than 100 billion, are
carried by chemical transmitters, with messages
transmitted at special points of
contact between the cells called synapses. One of these
chemical messengers is a
hormone-like substance called dopamine.
Explaining the possible consequences of his work,
Greengard told CNN that
``abnormalities in dopamine are implicated in a number of
major neurological and
psychiatric diseases including schizophrenia, Parkinson's
disease, attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder and drug abuse.
``And so, having worked out a lot of these chemical steps
used by the neurocells in
the brain provides a lot of new targets for
pharmaceutical companies to try to
develop new drugs for the treatment of these major
diseases,'' he said.
The Rockefeller University scientist was also asked how
he would spend his $1
million prize money. ``I haven't really had time to think
about that yet,'' he said.
Greengard has scheduled a news conference for 10:30 a.m.
EDT (1430 GMT).
Kandel was not available for comment until 1:30 p.m. EDT
(1730 GMT) because he
was attending temple on the Jewish religious holiday of
Yom Kippur, a spokesman
for Columbia University said.
Kandel, 70, joined the Columbia University College of
Physicians and Surgeons in
1974 as the founding director of the Center for
Neurobiology and Behavior. His
research has focused on synaptic plasticity in the
central nervous system and on
the molecular basis of higher cognitive functions.
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