The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine – also known as the Nobel Prize in Medicine – is awarded annually by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine, and the winner receives a prize worth 11 million Swedish krona ($1.1 million).
The following are the names of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine in the last ten years:
2024: Victor Ambros and Gary Rafkin (USA) announced their discovery of microRNA, a new class of small DNA molecules that play a crucial role in regulating gene activity.
2023: Katalin Karikó (Hungary) and Drew Weissman (United States) for their mRNA vaccine discoveries that paved the way for COVID-19 vaccines.
2022: Svante Pääbo (Sweden) for his role in determining the complete sequence of the Neanderthal genome and in establishing this specialty, which seeks, by studying DNA from fossils of ancient times, to know the characteristics of human genes in ancient times.
2021: David Julius and Arderem Patapoutian (USA) for their discoveries on how the nervous system transmits signals associated with temperature and touch.
2020: Harvey Alter, Charles Rice (United States) and Michael Houghton (Britain) for their role in discovering the virus responsible for hepatitis C.
2019: William Kaelin and Greg Semenza (United States) and Peter Ratcliffe (Britain) for their discovery of molecular mechanisms responsible for cells’ adaptation to fluctuating oxygen levels in the body, which opened therapeutic horizons for cancer and anemia.
2018: James B. Allison (United States) and Tasaku Honjo (Japan) for their research into immunotherapy, which has proven effective specifically in treating lethal cancers.
2017: Jeffrey S. Hall, Michael Rosbach, and Michael W. Yang (United States) for their discovery of molecular mechanisms regulating circadian rhythms.
2016: Yoshinori Ohsumi (Japan) for his research on autophagy in damaged cells.
2015: William Campbell (Ireland), Satoshi Omura (Japan) and Yuyou Tu (China) for discovering treatments against parasitic infections and malaria.