Thomas Perlmann, secretary-general of the Nobel Committee, presents the Nobel laureates, William G. Kaelin Jr., Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza, of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine during a news conference in Stockholm on Monday. That allows the human body to adapt to thinner air at high altitude by generating more red blood cells to carry oxygen. (This is the same basic mechanism behind doping, in which endurance athletes try to increase their supply of oxygen-carrying red blood cells.) An anemia drug was recently approved in China that increases red blood cells by targeting this basic mechanism. “The basic question is how the cancer cells can survive the lack-of-oxygen condition, and how what doesn’t kill them can make them stronger,” Zhang said.

Source: Washington Post October 07, 2019 09:42 UTC