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Nobel Prizes

Posted on: Thursday, 9 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

Chemistry award for work on 'channels' in cell walls

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Americans Peter Agre and Roderick MacKinnon won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for studies of tiny transportation tunnels in cell walls, work that illuminates diseases of the heart, kidneys, and nervous system.

Agre, 54, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, discovered in 1988 the "channels" that let water pass in and out of cells, the Royal Swedish Academy said.

MacKinnon, 47, did key studies of the structure and workings of channels that transport charged particles called ions through cell walls. He is with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at The Rockefeller University in New York.

The research sheds light on such conditions as diabetes. Serious diseases of the nervous system, muscle, and heart can result when ion channels fail to work properly. This makes ion channels important drug targets for pharmaceutical industry.

"These are discoveries that are of fundamental importance for the understanding of life processes, not just among humans and higher organisms, but also for bacteria and plants," said Bengt Norden, chairman of the chemistry committee.

Channels are found in all living cells, and are needed for such key body activities as muscle contraction, heart function and communication between nerve cells. Kidney cells use them to remove water from urine, for example.

Because of Agre's work, researchers can follow in detail a water molecule on its way through the cell wall and understand why only water, not other small molecules or ions, can pass, the academy said.

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2 to share $1.3M for study of economic developments

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - American Robert F. Engle and Briton Clive W.J. Granger won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Wednesday for their use of statistical methods for studying the timing behind economic developments.

Their research is used to gather data for "time series," such as chronological observations or for estimating relationships and testing hypotheses in economic theory, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

"Such time series show the development of [gross domestic product], prices, interest rates, stock prices, etc.," the citation said.

Their findings are important because on financial markets, random fluctuations and volatility can affect share prices and value, along with other financial instruments.

Engle is on the faculty of New York University and Granger retired June 30 from the University of California, San Diego, where Engle had previously worked. They will share the prize worth about $1.3 million.

Engle told The Associated Press his work is a statistical approach to measuring volatility. "It's important for measuring risk, for valuing derivatives and other financial instruments," he said.

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