The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute announced today that Randy W. Schekman, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at the University of California, Berkeley, Thomas C. Südhof, an HHMI investigator at Stanford University, and James E. Rothman of Yale University are the recipients of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells.
According to the Nobel Assembly, this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine honors three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system. Each cell is a factory that produces and exports molecules. For instance, insulin is manufactured and released into the blood and chemical signals called neurotransmitters are sent from one nerve cell to another. These molecules are transported around the cell in small packages called vesicles. The three Nobel Laureates have discovered the molecular principles that govern how this cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time in the cell.