Nobel prize announced

The winner of the Nobel Medicine Prize is to be revealed today, kicking off a week of prestigious award announcements including the two that are perhaps most anticipated, Literature and Peace.

As always, speculation is rife for those honours, to be announced on Thursday and Friday respectively, though no obvious candidates have emerged amid the annual buzz.

First out is the Medicine Prize, with the laureate to be revealed on Monday around 11:30 am (0930 GMT) by the Nobel jury at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute. The award committees for the various prizes never reveal the nominees, leaving the door wide open for frenzied speculation in the weeks prior to the announcements.

Some names that have circulated in the Swedish and international media for the Medicine Prize this year are Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak of the United States.

The trio won the 2006 Lasker Prize for predicting and discovering an enzyme called telomerase, which helps chromosomes in cells stay eternally young and which has drawn interest from researchers studying its role in everything from ageing to cancer.

Their work borders however on chemistry and they could also be honoured with the Nobel Chemistry Prize, to be announced on Wednesday.

Others mentioned for Monday's distinction include US scientist Margaret Liu for her work on DNA vaccines which help an individual's immune system fight disease, as well as Shinya
Yamanaka of Japan, who won the 2009 Lasker Prize for stem cell research that involves reprogramming adult cells to behave as stem cells.

The Economics Prize will wrap up the Nobel season on Monday, October 12.

This year's laureates will receive 10 million Swedish kronor (1.42 million dollars, 980,000 euros) which can be split between up to three winners per prize.

Nobel Prize foundation home page