Medicine prize

LONDON - Two US biochemists whose discovery of a muscle enzyme led to one of the most active fields of current research have won the Nobel prize for Medicine, writes Celia Hall.

Edwin Krebs and Edmond Fischer, both professors at the University of Washington in Seattle, were awarded the dollars 1.2m (pounds 700,000) prize by the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. The citation says their work on how cell proteins are regulated concerns 'almost all processes important to life'. The award committee said the work had 'very important implications in finding new kinds of drugs', such as in cancer treatment.