Aziz Sancar: Second Turk and possibly a Muslim wins Nobel
Source: Huffington Post
By Jade Walker;
Three scientists — Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar — won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for “mechanistic studies of DNA repair.”
The prize was announced by Göran Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Lindahl, a Swedish scientist, emeritus group leader at the Francis Crick Institute and emeritus director of cancer research at the Clare Hall Laboratory in Hertfordshire, U.K., discovered a molecular machinery known as base excision repair, which constantly counteracts the collapse of our DNA.
Modrich, an American researcher, teaches biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, N.C. and works as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His efforts showed how cells correct errors occurring when DNA is replicated during cell division.
Sancar, a U.S. and Turkish scientist who teaches biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, N.C., mapped the mechanism that cells use to repair UV damage to DNA.
“Their work has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer treatments,” the academy said in a statement.
The winners will split the $960,000 prize, The Associated Press reported, and receive a diploma and gold medal during the prize ceremony in December.
The Nobel Prizes in literature and peace are scheduled to be announced later this week. The economics prize will be awarded on Monday.
Categories: Americas, Europe and Australia, Science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aziz Sancar
Notable awards Nobel Prize in Chemistry
2015
Aziz Sancar (born 8 September 1946) is a Turkish biochemist specialising in DNA repair, cell cycle checkpoints, and the circadian clock[1]. He was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Tomas Lindahl and Paul L. Modrich for their mechanistic studies of DNA repair.[2] Sancar is the second Turkish Nobel laureate.
His longest-running study has involved photolyase and the mechanisms of photo-reactivation. In his inaugural article in the PNAS, Sancar captures the elusive photolyase radicals he has chased for nearly 20 years, thus providing direct observation of the photocycle for thymine dimer repair.[3]
Aziz Sancar was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2005. Sancar completed his M.D. in İstanbul University of Turkey and completed his Ph.D. on the photoreactivating enzyme of E. coli in 1977 at the University of Texas[4] in the laboratory of Dr. C. Stan Rupert, now Professor Emeritus. Aziz Sancar is the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is married to Gwen Boles Sancar, who graduated the same year and who is also a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[5] Together, they founded Carolina Turk Evi, a permanent Turkish Center in close proximity to the campus of UNC-CH, which provides graduate housing for four Turkish researchers at UNC-CH, short term guest services for Turkish visiting scholars, and a center from promoting Turkish-American interchange.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2015.
Together, they founded Carolina Turk Evi, a permanent Turkish Center in close proximity to the campus of UNC-CH, which provides graduate housing for four Turkish researchers at UNC-CH, short term guest services for Turkish visiting scholars, and a center from promoting Turkish-American interchange.
Do good,have good. Ker bhlua,Ho bhula (URDU)
“AZIZ SANCAR: SECOND TURK AND POSSIBLY A MUSLIM WINS NOBEL”, Reads the caption under the photograph.
While there is ample emphasis on his ethnicity and religion, there is less on the fact that his work was possible because he lives, works and researches in America where he found a wife with similar interest.