Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton, Charles Rice were awarded the 2020 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for their groundbreaking work on the hepatitis C virus (HCV).
The trio shared a 10m Swedish kronor prize.
On Monday, the Nobel assembly from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced the winners' names. Two Americans (Alter and Rice) and a British scientist (Houghton) who won the prestigious prize shared 10 million Swedish kronor (1.1m USD) among them.
The prestigious Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards presented in several categories by Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural, or scientific advances. It's considered to be the epitome of recognition and success by scientists and academics all over the world.
The official announcement said:
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice “for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus.”
Announcing the award, the Nobel Committee noted that the trio's work helped explain a major source of blood-borne hepatitis that couldn't be explained by the hepatitis A and B viruses. The Nobel committee further said:
Thanks to their discovery, highly sensitive blood tests for the virus are now available and these have essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis in many parts of the world, greatly improving global health. Their discovery also allowed the rapid development of antiviral drugs directed at hepatitis C. For the first time in history, the disease can now be cured, raising hopes of eradicating hepatitis C virus from the world population.
Harvey Alter at the US National Institutes of Health in Maryland, Charles Rice from Rockefeller University in New York, and Michael Houghton, a British virologist at the University of Alberta in Canada, were honored for their joint discovery of the hepatitis C virus. HCV is a lethal blood-borne virus that can cause liver scarring (cirrhosis) and even liver cancer.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also felicitated the trio. He tweeted:
Congratulations, Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton & Charles Rice for winning the Nobel Prize on Physiology or Medicine. Your groundbreaking work led to Hepatitis C virus identification & made it possible to develop tests & treatments that have saved millions of lives. Huge thank you.
