
Stroke info sheets for seniors
(AP) An American and two Britons won this year's Nobel
Prize in medicine for discoveries about how genes regulate organ growth and a process of programmed cell suicide. Their findings
shed new light on the development of many illnesses, including AIDS and strokes.
Britons Sydney Brenner, 75, and John
E. Sulston, 60, and American H. Robert Horvitz, 55, shared the prize, worth about $1 million.
Working with tiny worms,
the laureates identified key genes regulating organ development and programmed cell death, a necessary process for pruning
excess cells.
Brenner, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is also the founder of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley. He broke new ground by showing that a chemical could produce
specific genetic mutations in the roundworm, the Nobel Committee said. Different mutations could then be linked to specific
effects on organ development.
Sulston, of the Sanger
Center at England's Cambridge University, discovered that certain cells in the developing worm are destined to die through programmed cell
death. He demonstrated the first mutations of genes that participate in that process, the committee said.
Horvitz,
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, identified the first two "death genes" in the worms and showed that humans have
a gene similar to one of them, the committee said. Scientists now know that most genes controlling cell death in the worms
have counterparts in humans.
Information about programmed cell death has helped scientists understand how some viruses
and bacteria invade human cells, the committee said. In conditions such as AIDS, stroke and heart attack, cells are lost because
of excessive cell death. In other diseases like cancer, cell death is reduced, leading to the survival of cells that are normally
destined to die.
The award for medicine opened a week of Nobel Prizes that culminates Friday with the prestigious
peace prize, the only one revealed in Oslo, Norway.
The physics award will be announced Tuesday and the chemistry
and economics awards Wednesday in the Swedish capital.
As in years past, the date for the literature prize has not
been set. But it always falls on a Thursday, usually the same week as the other awards.
The award committees make
their decisions in deep secrecy and candidates are not publicly revealed for 50 years.
Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist
and inventor of dynamite, left only vague guidelines in his will establishing the prizes, first awarded in 1901.
For
the prize Monday, he simply stated the winner "shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology
or medicine."
The 18 lifetime members of the Swedish
Academy who choose the literature laureate make their final
decision at one of their weekly meetings, only setting the date early in the same week to keep the world guessing.
Kaj
Schueler, a literary editor at Swedish daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, predicted the academy's choice would be a surprise
since last year's award went to perennial favorite V.S. Naipaul.
"I also think it's time for them to pick a poet,"
Schueler said, declining to single out any names. "The last poet they had was the Polish writer Wislawa Szymborska in 1996.
Since then they've had playwrights and prose writers."
The only public hints are for the peace prize.
The
five-member awards committee never reveals the candidates, but sometimes those making the nominations announce their choices.
With the world still reeling from last year's Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and concerned about U.S. plans for a war
in Iraq, no clear favorites have emerged.
Among the nominees were Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has sought to
unify his country after the hard-line Taliban was ousted by U.S.-led airstrikes, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,
the Salvation Army and the U.S. Peace Corps.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were nominated for
leading the war against terrorism but were seen as unlikely winners in wake of their efforts to convince the world of the
need to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
The Nobel Assembly at the world-renowned Karolinska Institute, which selects the
medicine prize winner, invites nominations from previous recipients, professors of medicine and other professionals worldwide
before whittling down its choices in the fall.
Last year's winners were Leland H. Hartwell of the United States and R. Timothy Hunt and Paul M. Nurse from Britain for discovering key regulators of the process that lets cells divide,
which is expected to lead to new cancer treatments.
The awards always are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of
Nobel's death in 1896.
By Kim Gamel İMMII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Warning signs of strokes
learn about strokes
more about strokes
I woke up but I was unable to speak or move my body. Boy was I scared. This lasted about half an hour and
it came back. I never went to the Dr. for a few weeks.
Several months’ later #2 hit I was sent to a specialist fast. He said I want you in hospital yesterday.
I went in less than a month later he did a carotid artery operation. It made my Blood
pressure go from very high to almost not existing but I was better.
In 1998 #3 hit and it was bad. My eye didn't get oxygen and I lost the sight because of many bad things.
I also lost the use of my left hand and had a limp on my left side.
I am doing much better and keep trying to do more things. My advice is to make sure you learn all you can if
you are susceptible to it.
So what helped me? I believe that reading my Bible & using my brain to do things and excercising
it brought back many of the things that had gone wrong..
Keep doing and challenging it.
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Patient's Guide To Stroke Recovery Helps People Survive And Thrive After Stroke
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