Winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Summary
                The winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine were announced October Seventh, and those currently studying cells in a biology class should be able to understand the discoveries these men made in order for them to win the award. Three men have successfully discovered how a cell is able to organize the way it transports materials inside of it. The men revealed exactly how the materials are delivered to where they need to be in the cell.
                It is already known that material is moved within the cell in small bubbles called vesicles. They are made from the membrane of one organelle and then release their cargo by fusing with the membrane of another organelle, or the outer cell membrane. Randy Schekman, one of the winners of the Prize, identified three classes of genes that are known to control some aspect of the transportation system within cells. He did this by noticing which genes were mutated in cells that had poor transport systems. Another winner of the Nobel Prize, James Rothman, discovered how the vesicles within a cell know where to bind to. He found that there were specific proteins attached to the outside of specific membranes. When put together, the proteins bind together with each other. However, they will only bind to specific membranes with the specific proteins, so that way the vesicles will only connect with their targeted membrane. Thomas Südhof was the final recipient of the Prize, and that was for discovering how the contents of vesicles are able to be released on demand. He discovered specific machinery that responded to an increase of calcium ions, which were previously known to be important in this process, and therefore instructs proteins to bind the vesicle with the target membrane.
                How are these discoveries important? They proved to us that the mechanics that move vesicles around cells are basically the same between various types of species, such as yeast and humans. It will also give scientists ways to identify problems in cells affected by diseases such as diabetes. These discoveries opened up a whole new window of knowledge relating to cellular transport.

Relevance
                This article about the winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine relates to the cell unit that we studied because it answers some of the "how" questions that many have had. We learned that vesicles transport materials between organelles, but we didn't learn specifically how. That was a question that always nagged at me, and I'm sure at others as well. We also learned about unique proteins that are on the outside of cell membranes, but we didn't learn that they were used in more than just distinguishing the cells. I've asked the question "how" about many things we learned about in the cell unit, such as how ribosomes get attached to the E.R. Hopefully some of the questions that are more unknown will be answered for us later on through new discoveries.

Link
URL: 

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2013/press.html

MLA Citation: 

 "The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine - Press Release". Nobelprize.org. Nobel  
             
              Media AB 2013. Web. 20 Oct 2013. 

By Alex Garde