Alumnus Paul Modrich wins Nobel Prize in chemistry
Paul Modrich, a 1968 graduate of MIT, has been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work on DNA repair mechanisms. Modrich, who earned his BS in biology at MIT, is now the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine and a member of the Duke Cancer Center. He is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Modrich shares the Nobel Prize with Tomas Lindahl of the Francis Crick Institute in the United Kingdom and Aziz Sancar of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their work mapping how cells repair damaged DNA has “provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer drugs,” according to today’s Nobel Prize announcement. DNA is under constant attack from ultraviolet radiation, free radicals, and other potential carcinogens. It also undergoes spontaneous changes as well as...