STOCKHOLM, Sweden – Two British pioneers in DNA “fingerprinting” and a pair of Canadian stem cell researchers were among the favorites to win the Nobel Prize in medicine today.
The British scientists, Sir Alec Jeffreys of the University of Leicester and Sir Edwin Southern of Oxford University, shared this year’s Lasker prize for clinical medical research into DNA.
In 1984, Jeffreys found that a DNA sample could be linked to the person it came from – a finding that has come into play in court cases in which DNA evidence has exonerated convicted murderers. It has also been used to help identify the victims of mass disasters, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in New York and Washington.
Southern devised a lab technique in the mid-1970s that allows scientists to detect specific bits of genetic code within an organism’s overall DNA. The technique is now standard practice.
Two other favorites – also Lasker prize winners – are Ernest McCulloch and James Till of the Ontario Cancer Institute and the University of Toronto for their pioneering identification of a stem cell.
The British epidemiologists Richard Doll and Richard Peto have also been mentioned as likely winners for their work linking smoking with cancer.
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