Three Scientists Awarded With Nobel Medicine Prize for Learning How Cells Use Oxygen

Two Americans and a British scientist won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering how the body’s cells sense and react to oxygen levels.

This undated photo provided by Johns Hopkins University shows Gregg L. Semenza at the university in Baltimore. Johns Hopkins University via AP

LONDON—Two Americans and a British scientist won the 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering how the body’s cells sense and react to oxygen levels, work that has paved the way for new strategies to fight anemia, cancer and other diseases, the Nobel Committee said.

Drs. William G. Kaelin Jr. of Harvard University, Gregg L. Semenza of Johns Hopkins University and Peter J. Ratcliffe at the Francis Crick Institute in Britain and Oxford University will share equally the 9 million kronor ($918,000) cash award, the Karolinska Institute said.