Two Americans and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their work in embryonic stem cell research, the Nobel jury said.(Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

Two Americans and a Briton won the 2007 Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their work in embryonic stem cell research, the Nobel jury said. (Xinhua Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    STOCKHOLM, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- Two Americans and a Briton picked up the 2007 Nobel Medicine Prize Monday for their work in embryonic stem cell research, the Nobel jury said.

    Briton Martin J. Evans and Americans Mario R. Capecchi and Oliver Smithies shared the Medicine Prize for their "groundbreaking discoveries concerning embryonic stem cells and DNA recombination in mammals," according to the Nobel jury at the Karolinska Institute.

    The international team has made significant contributions to introducing genetic changes in mice using embryonic stem cells.

    The process has been used to determine why some diseases strike people at a cellular level, as well as models in mice that show how human disorders such as cardiovascular ailments, diabetes and cancer exist and strike otherwise healthy people.

    Capecchi, 70, was born in Italy but has become a U.S. citizen. Capecchi's research has uncovered the roles of genes involved in mammalian organ development and in the establishment of the body plan, the award committee said.

    Both Evans, 66, and Smithies, 82, are British-born although the latter holds U.S. citizenship.

    Evans applied gene targeting to develop mouse models for human diseases, and has used these models to study disease mechanisms and to test the effects of gene therapy.

    And Smithies, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also used gene targeting to develop mouse models for inherited diseases including cystic fibrosis and the blood disease thalassemia.

    The award committee praised their work for having helped expand the knowledge of "numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease."

    The medicine prize was the first of the six prestigious awards to be announced this year.

    The winners of the Physics Prize will be announced Tuesday, to be followed by those for Chemistry Wednesday, Literature Thursday, Peace Friday and Economics next Monday.

    Last year, the Nobel Prize for medicine went to Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for their work in controlling the flow of genetic information.

    The annual Nobel Prizes are usually announced in October and are handed out on Dec. 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish industrialist and the inventor of dynamite.

    Nobel died childless and dedicated his vast fortune to create "prizes for those, who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."

    The prizes have been awarded since 1901. Each prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma and a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (1.53 million U.S. dollars).