Medicine Nobel prize rewards discovery of cells’ oxygen sensing machinery

The 2019 physiology or medicine Nobel prize has been awarded to the scientist trio that uncovered how cells sense and adapt to changing oxygen levels. William Kaelin from Harvard University, US, Peter Ratcliffe from the UK’s University of Oxford, and Gregg Semenza from Johns Hopkins University, US, share this year’s prize for a discovery that has opened up new ways to fight cancer, anaemia, kidney disease and even heart attacks. Several drugs blocking oxygen-sensing enzymes – and thus stimulating red blood cell production – are currently in late stage clinical trials.