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A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 8 OcTOber 2019
3 win Nobel Prize for showing how cells sense low oxygen

Associated Press realized the discovery had
NEW YORK (AP) — Two much wider significance,
Americans and a British Ratcliffe said.
scientist won a Nobel Prize "We saw that it wasn't just
on Monday for discovering cells in the kidney that
details of how the body's know how to sense oxygen,
cells sense and react to but all cells in the body. ...
low oxygen levels, provid- There are hundreds and
ing a foothold for devel- thousands of processes the
oping new treatments for body uses to adapt to and
anemia, cancer and other regulate its oxygen levels."
diseases. He said while some prom-
Drs. William G. Kaelin Jr. of ising drugs have been de-
Harvard University, Gregg L. veloped, it will be years be-
Semenza of Johns Hopkins fore it's clear whether such
University and Peter J. Rat- discoveries are going to
cliffe at the Francis Crick In- change the lives of tens of
stitute in Britain and Oxford thousands.
University won the prize for In Baltimore, Semenza, 63,
advances in physiology or said he slept through the
medicine. Nobel committee's initial
The scientists, who worked Associated Press phone call. "By the time
largely independently, will I got to the phone it was
share the 9 million kronor The Nobel committee said stroke, and a condition of AP's Health and Science too late," he said. He went
($918,000) cash award, scientists are focused on reduced blood flow in the department. back to sleep but was able
said the Karolinska Institute developing drugs that can limbs that can lead to am- Ratcliffe, 65, said he to answer the second call
in Stockholm. treat diseases by either ac- putation, the researchers learned the news after he from Stockholm.
They "revealed the mecha- tivating or suppressing the said. was summoned out of a He said kidney cancer may
nism for one of life's most oxygen-sensing machinery. Kaelin, 61, said he was half- meeting this morning by his be the first malignancy in
essential adaptive process- Such manipulation could asleep when the phone secretary, who had "a look which a drug based on the
es," the Nobel committee help in attacking cancer rang Monday morning with of urgency." prize-winning work might
said. cells, experts said. the news of his award. Trained as a kidney spe- make chemotherapy more
Cells can encounter low- Another payoff is pills to "I don't usually get phone cialist, Ratcliffe said his re- effective, and that he
ered oxygen not only from boost production of red calls at 5:00 in the morning, search began when he hopes many other cancers
situations like living at high blood cells in anemia, so, naturally, my heart start- and colleagues simply will follow.
altitudes, but also from which can appear in peo- ed racing and I could see wanted to figure out how Speaking at a news con-
things like a wound that ple with chronic kidney dis- the call was from Stock- cells sense oxygen. ference at Johns Hopkins
interferes with local blood ease. One such drug has holm," he said. "And so I "I thought it was a defin- University's School of Medi-
supply. Their response trig- been approved in China think at that point I almost able problem and just cine, Semenza paid tribute
gers reactions that include and Japan and a filing for had an out-of-body type of thought we'd find out how to his biology teacher, Rose
producing red blood cells, approval in the U.S. is ex- experience." it worked," he said. It was Nelson, at Sleepy Hollow
generating new blood ves- pected soon, Kaelin said. Kaelin is paid by the How- about two years into their High School in Sleepy Hol-
sels and fine-tuning the im- Still other potential targets ard Hughes Medical Insti- research program, which low, N.Y., for inspiring his
mune system. include heart attack and tute, which also supports began in 1990, that they pursuit of medicine.q

Discovery of 20 new moons puts Saturn ahead of Jupiter

By MARCIA DUNN "It was fun to find that Sat- 20 new moons are minus- Jupiter, Sheppard said, giv- "These moons are the rem-
AP Aerospace Writer urn is the true moon king," cule, each barely 3 miles (5 en how much farther Sat- nants of the objects that
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. said astronomer Scott kilometers) in diameter. urn is. helped form the planets,
(AP) — The solar system has Sheppard of the Carnegie Sheppard and his team "So seeing that Saturn has so by studying them, we
a new winner in the moon Institution for Science. used a telescope in Ha- more moons even though are learning about what
department. If it's any consolation to the waii to spot Saturn's 20 it is harder to find them, the planets formed from,"
Twenty new moons have Jupiter crowd, our solar sys- new moons over the sum- shows just how many Sheppard wrote.
been found around Saturn, tem's biggest planet — Ju- mer. About 100 even tinier moons Saturn has collect- Just last year, Sheppard
giving the ringed planet a piter — still has the biggest moons may be orbiting Sat- ed over time," he wrote found 12 new moons
total of 82, scientists said moon. Jupiter's Ganymede urn, still waiting to be found, in an email. These baby around Jupiter. The Carne-
Monday. That beats Jupiter is almost half the size of he said. moons may have come gie Institution had a moon-
and its 79 moons. Earth. By contrast, Saturn's Astronomers have pretty from larger parent moons naming contest for them;
much completed the in- that broke apart right after another is planned now for
ventory of moons as small Saturn formed. Saturn's new moons .
as 3 miles (5 kilometers) Seventeen of Saturn's new The jury is still out on whether
around Saturn and 1 mile moons orbit the planet in any planets beyond our so-
(1.6 kilometers) around Ju- the opposite, or retrograde, lar system have even more
piter, according to Shep- direction. The other three moons. For now, Saturn has
pard. Future larger tele- circle in the same direction the most known moons.
scopes will be needed to that Saturn rotates. They're Monday's announcement
see anything smaller. so far from Saturn that it came from the Internation-
It's harder spotting mini takes two to three years to al Astronomical Union's Mi-
moons around Saturn than complete a single orbit. nor Planet Center.q