Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Three American scientists win the Nobel Prize in Medicine' that was published in Newsband

Three American scientists win the Nobel Prize in Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2017 has gone to three American scientists for the discovery of the molecular mechanisms that control circadian rhythms, the biological clock that anticipates day/night cycles to optimise the physiology and behaviour of organisms.

They have used Drosophila since the 1970s in their work on the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that keeps us in sync with the world. It tracks the rotation of the Earth, tells us when to go to sleep and when it’s time to get up, and prepares us for the routine bodily tasks that we perform through the day and night — and for the challenges that we may face.

It exerts its influence in unseen ways, too, regulating the cycle of blood pressure and body temperature. It suppresses bowel movements just before midnight and relinquishes its control early in the morning, ensuring that we don’t wake ourselves during the period of deepest sleep and lowest metabolic rate.

While the circadian rhythm has been understood and described in detail, the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Jeffrey C Hall and Michael Rosbash, lifelong colleagues at Brandeis University, and Michael W Young of Rockefeller University, for getting under the hood of its mechanism — the mainspring of the biological clock that makes us tick.

Jeffrey C Hall, 72, received doctoral degree in 1971 at the University of Washington in Seattle, was postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, 1971-73, joined Brandeis University in Waltham in 1974, became associated with University of Maine in 2002

Michael Rosbash, 73, received doctoral degree in 1970 at MIT, and was postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland for the next three years. Since 1974, he has been on faculty at Brandeis University in Waltham, USA

Michael W Young, 68, received doctoral degree at the University of Texas in Austin in 1975. From 1975-77, he was postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in Palo Alto. From 1978, he has been on faculty at the Rockefeller University in New York

ALFRED NOBEL: The Man Behind the Prize, was Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman and philanthropist, was born in Stockholm on October 21, 1833. In 1867, at the end of several years of experimentation with the chemical nitroglycerine, Nobel patented dynamite, which revolutionised mining and civil engineering in the 19th century. He continued to work on explosives technology and other chemical inventions and, by the time of his death in 1896, had 355 patents. Nobel founded and owned a galaxy of companies, including, from 1894 until his death, Bofors.

On November 27, 1895, Nobel signed his third and last will, in which he left much of his wealth for the establishment of a fund, “the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of Prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to mankind”.