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.
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