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Nobel Prize Winners

Since the MRC was set up in 1913, 29 scientists in our units or supported by MRC grants have won Nobel Prizes. The MRC’s prize winners have been spread across the Nobel categories of Physiology or Medicine and Chemistry.

2009 Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Structure and function of ribosomes
2007 Sir Martin Evans
Principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells
2003 Sir Peter Mansfield
Development of magnetic resonance imaging through applied physics
2002 Sir John Sulston, Dr Sydney Brenner and Professor Robert Horvitz
How genes regulate organ development, and programmed cell death
2001 Sir Paul Nurse and Dr Tim Hunt
How processes involved in cell division are coordinated
1997 Sir John Walker
Structure of the cell’s major energy source
1984 Dr Cesar Milstein and Dr Georges Kohler
Technique for producing monoclonal antibodies
1982 Sir Aaron Klug
First detailed picture of the structure of proteins that interact with DNA
1980 Dr Frederick Sanger
Technique to determine the sequence of the building blocks in DNA
1975 Professor John Cornforth
Enzymes and the geometry of chemical reactions they catalyse
1972 Professor Rodney Porter
Chemical structure of antibodies
1962 Dr Max Perutz and Sir John Kendrew
X-ray crystallography to determine the structure of globular proteins
1962 Dr Francis Crick, Professor James Watson and Professor Maurice Wilkins
Structure of DNA
1960 Sir Peter Medawar
Acquired immunological tolerance
1958 Dr Frederick Sanger
Deciphering first amino acid sequence of a protein - insulin
1953 Sir Hans Krebs
The citric acid cycle – key to how nutrients are broken down and used in the body
1952 Dr Archer Martin
Invention of partition chromatography
1945 Sir Alexander Fleming, Sir Ernst Chain and Lord Florey
Penicillin, the first antibiotic
1936 Sir Henry Dale
Neurological chemical transmitters
1929 Sir Frederick Hopkins
Vitamins and their role in the body