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Stem-Cell Researchers Win Nobel Prize for Medicine (Update3) By Eva von Schaper Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. scientists Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies and the U.K.'s Martin Evans won the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on embryonic stem-cell research. The three scientists' discoveries led to the creation of a technology called gene targeting in mice, the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation said today in an e-mailed statement. The technique is used to turn off single genes, illuminating their roles in embryonic development, disease and aging. Gene targeting allows scientists to make almost any type of DNA change in the mouse genome, the foundation said. The research has produced more than 500 mouse models of human disorders such as diabetes and cancer, which may aid drug studies. ``Gene targeting in mice has pervaded all fields of biomedicine,'' the foundation said in the statement. ``Its impact on the understanding of gene function and its benefits to mankind will continue to increase over many years to come.'' Capecchi, 70, was born in Italy and earned a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University in 1967. He is a professor of human genetics and biology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Smithies, born in the U.K., earned his doctorate in biochemistry from Oxford University in 1951. He is a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Both Capecchi and Smithies are U.S. citizens. Evans got a doctorate in anatomy and embryology in 1969 from University College London. He is the director of the School of Biosciences and professor of mammalian genetics at Cardiff University. `Good Pair of Hands' ``This is fantastic and more than deserved,'' Vladimir Buchman, 51, who works with Evans at Cardiff University, said in a telephone interview. Evans has ``the brains to do this kind of research and a good pair of hands,'' Buchman said. Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. The Nobel Foundation was established in 1900 and the prizes were first handed out the following year. An economics prize was created in 1969 in memory of Nobel by the Swedish central bank. Only the peace prize is awarded outside Sweden, by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo. Last year, U.S. scientists Andrew Fire and Craig Mello won the Nobel Prize for their work on how organisms control the flow of genetic information. To contact the reporter on this story: Eva von Schaper in Munich at [log in to unmask] . Last Updated: October 8, 2007 06:52 EDT Rayilyn Brown Board Member AZNPF Arizona Chapter National Parkinson's Foundation [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn