OUR MAGAZINE COVER NOSSA CAPA
Timothy Hunt, Leland Hartwel e Paul Nurse,
ganhadores do Prêmio Nobel de Medicina em 2001
In 2001, Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine were the scientists Leland Hartwel, Tim Hunt and sir Paul Nurse, who have made seminal discoveries concerning the control of the cell cycle. They have identified key molecules that regulate the cell cycle in all eukaryotic organisms, including yeasts, plants, animals and human. These fundamental discoveries have a great impact on all aspects of cell growth. This may in the long term open new possibilities for cancer treatment.
Some substances are directly linked to cell cycle control, informing, for instance, when the cell must interrupt the growth process and begin division. Generically, these substances are called cyclins. Defects in cell cycle control may lead to the type of chromosome alterations seen in cancer cells. Cancer could be caused by the hyperfunction of a type of cyclin.
LAUREATES
Leland Hartwell (born 1939), Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, USA, is awarded for his discoveries of a specific class of genes that control the cell cycle. One of these genes called start was found to have a central role in controlling the first step of each cell cycle. Hartwell also introduced the concept checkpoint, a valuable aid to understanding the cell cycle.
Paul Nurse (born 1949), Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, identified, cloned and characterized with genetic and molecular methods, one of the key regulators of the cell cycle, CDK (cyclin dependent kinase). He showed that the function of CDK was highly conserved during evolution. CDK drives the cell through the cell cycle by chemical modification (phosphorylation) of other proteins.
Timothy Hunt (born 1943), Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, is awarded for his discovery of cyclins, proteins that regulate the CDK function. He showed that cyclins are degraded periodically at each cell division, a mechanism proved to be of general importance for cell cycle control.
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
19 July 2004 -
Date of issue
June 2004
