The Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet said William G Kaelin Jr and Gregg L Semenza, both US-born, will share the honour with British scientist Sir Peter J Ratcliffe.
Three scientists - two from the United States and one from the United Kingdom - were jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their "for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability."
The award was announced on Monday by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
In a statement, the Nobel Assembly said that William G Kaelin Jr and Gregg L Semenza, both US-born, will share the honour with Britain-born Sir Peter J Ratcliffe.
"The seminal discoveries by this year’s Nobel Laureates revealed the mechanism for one of life’s most essential adaptive processes," it said.
The award entails prize money of 9 million Swedish crowns or US $913,000.
The three scientists identified molecular machinery that regulates the activity of genes in response to varying levels of oxygen. They established the basis for our understanding of how oxygen levels affect cellular metabolism and physiological function, the institute said.
Their discoveries have also paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases, it added,
Significance of discovery
The Karolinska Institutet said Oxygen sensing is central to a large number of diseases.
"...the oxygen-regulated machinery has an important role in cancer. In tumours, the oxygen-regulated machinery is utilized to stimulate blood vessel formation and reshape metabolism for effective proliferation of cancer cells," it said.
Further, it said, "Intense ongoing efforts in academic laboratories and pharmaceutical companies are now focused on developing drugs that can interfere with different disease states by either activating, or blocking, the oxygen-sensing machinery."
The Nobel Prize, established in memory of Swedish inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel, is given for achievements in science (physics, chemistry, medicine), peace, economics and literature. Medicine is the first award category announced each year.
Who are the three recipients
William Kaelin Jr, currently affiliated with several universities including the Harvard Medical School, was born in New York in 1957. Known for his research on tumour suppressor proteins, he also won the 2016 ASCO Science of Oncology Award, and 2016 AACR Princess Takamatsu Award. He is currently a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
Dr Semenza, also a New York-born scientist is currently affiliated with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 63-year-old Semenza, who serves as the director of the vascular program at the Institute for Cell Engineering, is a 2016 recipient of the Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research.
Sir Peter Ratcliffe, the only British scientist among the three, was born in Lancashire in 1954. A renowned name in the field of cell and molecular research, Dr Ratcliffe was a practising clinician at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and is now Clinical Research Director, at the Francis Crick Institute.
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