Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to US-UK trio for discovery of hepatitis C virus
Thomas Perlmann (R), the Secretary of the Nobel Committee, speaks to announce the winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (On screen L-R) American Harvey Alter, Briton Michael Houghton and American Charles Rice, as Nobel Committee members Patrik Ernfors (L) and Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam look on, during a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 5, 2020. – Americans Harvey Alter and Charles Rice as well as Briton Michael Houghton win the 2020 Nobel Medicine Prize for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP) (Photo by JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images)
The Nobel Prize in Medicine has been jointly awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for the discovery of hepatitis C virus.
The award is one of the most sought-after global accolades and grants entry into one of the most
prestigious clubs in the world.
The Nobel Assembly said in a news release Monday that the three scientists “made seminal discoveries
that led to the identification of a novel virus.” It said the trio had “made a decisive contribution to the fight
against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in
people around the world.”
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet on Monday.
Globally, an estimated 71 million people have chronic hepatitis C virus infection, according to the World
Health Organization. A significant number of those who are chronically infected will develop cirrhosis or
liver cancer.
“It’s long overdue. Hep C arguably has caused just as much, if not more deaths, than the current
coronavirus pandemic,” Gilbert Thompson, professor emeritus of clinical lipidology at Imperial College
London, told CNN. “It was a major problem and this (work) was an enormous step forward.”
Secretary of the Nobel Assembly Thomas Perlmann said he had to call the winners several times before
he finally reached Alter and Rice.
“I woke them up and they were very surprised, they were definitely not sitting by the phone because I
called them a couple of times before without any answer,” he said after making the announcement.
“But once I reached them they were extremely surprised and really happy and speechless almost, so it