Medicine Award Kicks off Nobel Prize Announcements(B级)
Two scientists who have won praise for research into the growth of cancer cells could be candidates for the Nobel Prize in medicine when the 2008 winners are presented on Monday, kicking off six days Nobel announcements.
Australian-born U.S. citizen Elizabeth Blackburn and American Carol Greider have already won a series of medical honors for their enzyme research and experts say they could be among the front-runners for Nobel.
Only seven women have won the medicine prize since the first Nobel Prizes were handed out in 1901. The last female winner was U.S. researcher Linda Buck in 2004, who shared the prize with Richard Axel.
Among the pair’s possible rivals are Frenchman Pierre Chambon and Americans Ronald Evans and Elwood Jensen, who opened up the field of studying proteins called nuclear hormone receptors.
As usual, the award committee is giving no hints about who is in the running before presenting its decision in a news conference at Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute.
Alfred Nobel, the Swede who invented dynamite, established the prizes in his will in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. The economics prize is technically not a Nobel but a 1968 creation of Sweden’s central bank.
Nobel left few instructions on how to select winners, but medicine winners are typically awarded for a specific breakthrough rather than a body of research.
Hans Jornvall, secretary of the medicine prize committee, said the 10 million kronor (US$1.3 million) prize encourages groundbreaking research but he did not think winning it was the primary goal for scientists.
“Individual researchers probably don’t look at themselves as potential Nobel Prize winners when they’re at work,” Jornvall told The Associated Press. “They get their kicks from their research and their interest in how life functions.”
In 2006, Blackburn, of the University of California, San Francisco, and Greider, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, shared the Lasker prize for basic medical research with Jack Szostak of Harvard Medical School. Their work set the stage for research suggesting that cancer cells use telomerase to sustain their uncontrolled growth.
练习：
1. Who is Not a likely candidate for this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine?
A. Elizabeth Blackburn.
B. Carol Greider.
C. Linda Buck.
D. Pierre Chambon.
2. Which is NOT true of Alfred Nobel?
A. He was from Sweden.
B. He was the inventor of dynamite.
C. He established the prizes in his will.
D. He gave clear instructions on how to select winners.
3. Which was NOT originally one of the Nobel Prizes?
A. The medicine prize.
B. The literature prize.
C. The peace prize.
D. The economics prize.
4. The word “kicks” in line 6 from the bottom probably means
A. excitement.
B. income.
C. motivation.
D. knowledge.
5. The research by Blackburn and Greider helps suggest the role of
A. money in medical research.
B. proteins in cancer treatment.
C. hormones in the functioning of life.
D. telomerase in the growth of cancer cells.
答案：1.C2.D3.D4.A5.D
第四篇： 诺贝尔奖的公布从医学奖开始
两位因研究癌细胞的生长而赢得赞誉的科学家可能成为2008年诺贝尔医学奖的候选人，周一将为医学获奖者进行颁奖，从而开始诺贝尔奖为期六天的公布。
由于对酶的研究，出生于澳大利亚的美国人伊丽莎白.布莱克本和另外一个美国人开罗.格雷德已经赢得了一系列医学方面的荣誉。专家认为他们最可能获得这次的医学奖。
自1901年首次颁发诺贝尔奖以来，只有七名女性赢得了医学奖，其中最后一名是美国研究员琳达.巴克，她和理查德.埃克索一起获得了2004年的医学奖。
布莱克本和格雷德的竞争对手有来自法国的皮埃尔.尚本，来自美国的罗纳德.依文斯和艾尔伍德.杰森，他们开创了核激素受体这一蛋白质研究的新领域。
与以前一样，在斯德哥尔摩卡罗林斯卡学院召开新闻发布会并公布决定之前，评奖委员会没有任何关于候选人是谁的暗示。
阿尔佛雷德.诺贝尔是瑞典人，他发明了甘油炸药。他在遗嘱里确立了诺贝尔而是瑞典中央银行在1968年创立的。
诺贝尔没有留下关于如何评奖的指导，然而，医学奖的获得通常是由于具体的突破，而不是大量的研究。
医学奖委员会秘书汉斯.乔恩瓦说，一千万瑞典克朗(相当于130万美元)的奖金可以鼓励开拓性研究，然而，他认为，赢得奖金并不是科学家的初衷。
“从事研究工作时，研究者很可能并不把自己看成未来的诺贝尔获奖者。“ 乔恩瓦这样对美联社记者说：“他们的动力来自他们的研究以及对生命运转方式的兴趣。”
2006年，来自旧金山加利福尼亚大学的布莱克本，来自巴尔的摩约翰.霍普金斯大学的格雷德与来自哈佛医学院的杰克.绍斯塔克共同获得了拉斯克尔基础医学奖。他们的工作为研究癌细胞利用端粒酶维持不可控制的生长打下了基础。
