Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2012 goes to 2 American scientists

With a study related to the internal working mechanism of an important family of receptor cells in the body, two American scientists have "won" the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Nobel Committee announces the prize (Photo: The Guardian)

Their research, called "G-protein coupled receptors", was assessed by the Nobel Committee as a breakthrough and opened up new research directions in the creation of drugs to treat heart disease, Parkinson's and migraines.

Robert Lefkowitz is currently working at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center, and Brian Kobilka is working at Stanford University Medical School. The two scientists will also share the 8 million Swedish kronor (equivalent to 1.2 million USD) prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.

Last year, the prize was awarded to Chemistry Professor Daniel Shechtman of the Haifa Institute of Technology (Israel) for his discovery of the "quasi-crystalline" structure of atoms.

This is the third Nobel Prize to be announced. Previously, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to two scientists, John Gurdon (British) and Shinya Yamanaka (Japanese); the Nobel Prize in Physics went to scientists Serge Haroche (France) and David Wineland (USA).

The next Nobel Prizes will be announced on October 11 (Nobel Literature), October 12 (Nobel Peace) and October 15 (Nobel Economics).

(According to VTV.VN) - VT