Genetics was the focus of this year’s Noble Prize for Physiology and Medicine. This prestigious prize was awarded to Lee Hartwell, PhD, president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Professor of Genetics at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA and to Dr Paul M Nurse and Dr R Timothy, BOTH of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK.

            Dr Hartwell used yeast as a model organism and pioneered the use of genetic tools to determine which genes caused cells to divide. His ground breaking research led to the discovery of the universal mechanism that controls cell division in all eukaryotic (nucleated) organisms, from yeast to frogs to humans.