Stem-cell research pioneers win Nobel Prize for Medicine

The 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine has been awarded to three pioneers in the field of stem-cell research. Sir Martin Evans, from the UK's Cardiff University, shares the prize with US researchers Mario Capechi of the University of Utah and Oliver Smithies of the University of North Carolina "for their discovery of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells," according to the Nobel Committee.

Each of the scientists will receive one third of the total $1.5 million prize for their work in developing a technique for targeted genetic manipulation which allows single mice genes to be disabled. Since Sir Martin's early work in the 1980s, later refined by Drs Capechi and Smithies, over 10,000 genes have been knocked out in mice, helping scientists better understand the workings of the mammalian genome.

Some US researchers hope that the award will draw attention to the importance of stem-cell research after what many see as a lack of funding from the Bush administration. "Perhaps the US government will note that foreign countries are being honored in this arena and that we had better get our act together in this country, or be left in the dust," Helen Blau, director of the Baxter Laboratory for Genetic Pharmacology at Stanford University, told NBC News. "It is tragic that US science is losing its long-term advantage in the development of novel therapies," she added.