3 American scientists win 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine

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Three American scientists have won the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine. They were given the award for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.

Professor Goran Hansson, Secretary of the Nobel Assembly, said, "The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2009 jointly to Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase."

Elizabeth Blackburn is a professor of biology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Another co-winner, Carol Greider, is a professor in the department of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Elizabeth Blackburn, co-winner of Nobel Prize in medicine, said, "I think I thought I was dreaming. And I groped for the phone and the person explained why he was calling and it slowly dawned on me that this might be real and so I was very, very excited as my brain cells started to wake up."

56-year-old Jack Szostak has been at Harvard Medical School since 1979 and is currently a professor of genetics.