Wasn't expecting a Nobel Prize at all, says scientist Aziz Sancar

Turkish-born Aziz Sancar along with Sweden's Tomas Lindahl and the US-based Paul Modrich won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for work on mapping how cells repair damaged DNA, the award-giving body said on Wednesday.

Aziz Sancar is the first Turkish-born scientist to win a Nobel prize. On Facebook, Nobel Prize stated Sancar "has mapped nucleotide excision repair, the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA."

Read: 5 things you need to know about Nobel Prize in Chemistry

In an interview with the Nobel Prize organisation, Sancar reveals how he heard the exciting news. In the interview posted on SoundClud, Sancar said,  "I just got a call half an hour ago. My wife took it and woke me up. I wasn’t expecting it at all. I am very surprised. I tried my best to be coherent, I was sleeping, it was a pleasant experience....I am of course honoured to get this recognition for all the work I’ve done over the years but I’m also proud for my family and for my native country and for my adopted country. Especially for Turkey, it’s quite important."

Sancar also spoke about repair mechanisms and its importance to cancer treatment. "They are also important in cancer treatment because many of the anti-cancer drugs do damage DNA and whether cancer cells can repair it or not can influence how cancer is treated," he said

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