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 The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvey J. Alter,Michael Houghton andCharles M. Rice | ||||
.jpg) .jpg) .jpg) "for the discovery ofHepatitis C virus." | ||||
| Date | 5 October 2020 (2020-10-05) | |||
| Location | Stockholm | |||
| Country | Sweden | |||
| Presented by | Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet | |||
| Reward | 9 millionSEK (2017)[1] | |||
| First award | 1901 | |||
| Website | 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine | |||
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The2020Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to the American virologistsHarvey J. Alter (born 1935),Michael Houghton (born 1949) andCharles M. Rice (born 1952) "for the discovery ofHepatitis C virus."[2][3][4] During the award ceremony on December 10, 2020, Prof. Gunilla Karlsson-Hedestam said:
"The discovery of the Hepatitis C virus by this year’s Laureates laid the foundation for our current understanding about how the virus survives in its niche during the long chronic phase of the infection, and how liver disease develops. And importantly, it led to the development of highly effective anti-viral medicines that now cure the infection in almost all treated persons."[5]
Alter was born in New York City[6] in a Jewish family.[7] He attended theUniversity of Rochester inRochester, New York, and earned aBachelor of Arts degree in 1956. In 1960, Alter obtained a medical degree from University of Rochester[8][9] and began a residency at Strong Memorial. Alters's post graduate training includes a rotation as a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, from December 1961 to June 1964;[10][7][11] a year of residency in medicine atUniversity of Washington School of Medicine,Seattle, Washington,[12] from July 1964 to June 1965; and work as ahematology fellow atGeorgetown University Hospital,Washington, D.C., from July 1965 to June 1966.[10] He has been senior investigator in the Department of Transfusion Medicine at the NIH from July 1969 to present; chief of infectious diseases section at the department of transfusion medicine in the Clinical Center NIH from December 1972 to present; associate director for research at the department of transfusion medicine at the Clinical Center at NIH from January 1987 to present.[10] He was the recipient of 1992Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award, the 2002Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award or his work leading to the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C, and 2013Gairdner Foundation International Award.[13]
Michael James Houghton was born in 1949 in the United Kingdom. He received his Ph.D. degree inbiochemistry in 1977 fromKing's College London. He joined theG. D. Searle & Company before moving in 1982 toChiron Corporation in California. He relocated to theUniversity of Alberta in 2010 and is currently a professor ofvirology at theUniversity of Alberta where he is also director of the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute.[14] He was a recipient of numerous prizes such as 1992Karl Landsteiner Memorial Award (together with Harvey J. Alter), the 1994William Beaumont Prize, and the 2002Lasker Award.[15]
Charles Moen Rice was born in 1952 in Sacramento, California. He received his Ph.D. degree in 1981 from theCalifornia Institute of Technology where he also trained as a postdoctoral fellow between 1981 and 1985. He established his research group atWashington University School of Medicine in 1986 and became a full professor in 1995. Since 2001, he has been professor at theRockefeller University in New York. During 2001–2018, he was the Scientific and Executive Director at the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C atRockefeller University where he remains active.[16] He was the recipient of the 2007 M.W. Beijerinck Virology Prize, the 2015Robert Koch Prize, and the 2016Lasker Award (withMichael J. Sofia andRalf F. W. Bartenschlager).[17]
The following publications were the fundamental researches that motivated theNobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet to award the 2020 Prize to Alter, Houghton and Rice:[18]
