Scientific Background How cells sense and adapt to oxygen availabilityThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2019 is awarded to William Kaelin, Jr., Sir Peter Ratcliffe, and Gregg Semenza. The need for oxygen to sustain life has been understood since the onset of modern biology; but the molecular mechanisms underlying how cells adapt to variations in oxygen supply were unknown until the prize-winning work described here. Animal cells undergo fundamental shifts in gene expression when there are changes in the oxygen levels around them.
November 8, 2019