WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2015 — On behalf of the American Chemical Society (ACS), President Diane Grob Schmidt, Ph.D., congratulates today’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Tomas Lindahl, M.D., Ph.D., of Francis Crick Institute and Clare Hall Laboratory (U.K.), Paul Modrich, Ph.D., of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine and Aziz Sancar, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the prize “for having mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information.”

“The 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry recognizes the critical role chemistry plays in repairing and replicating human DNA, which is the blueprint of life itself,” says Schmidt. “Understanding these processes will help us develop and design therapies to intervene when DNA errors are internally or externally caused. I extend my congratulations to all three of this year’s winners, and I am so proud that Sancar is a 29-year member of ACS.”

Sancar won the Distinguished Lecturer of 2001 award from the ACS North Carolina Section.

All of the winners have published articles in some of ACS’ more than 40 peer-reviewed journals. The articles are available from the contacts above.

News media can arrange telephone interviews with Schmidt or other experts in the field through the ACS Office of Public Affairs. The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 158,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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