This year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine will go to three researchers who found a way to learn about the duties of individual genes. They discovered how to inactivate, or knock out single genes in laboratory animals. The result is known as “knockout mice”.

今年的诺贝尔医学将由发现研究单个基因功能方法的3位研究者分享。他们发现了怎样在实验动物中使单个基因失活或敲除单个基因的方法。其结果被称为“基因敲除小鼠。”

The Karolinska Institute named the winners last week. Two Americans, Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies, will share the one and one-half million dollars prize with Martin Evans of Britain. They will receive what is officially called the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine at ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden on December 10th.

上周，卡洛林斯卡医学院公布了获奖者。两位美国学者Mario Capecchi、Oliver Smithies与一位英国学者Martin Evans共同分享150万美元的奖金。他们将于12月10日，在瑞典斯德哥尔摩获得诺贝尔生理医学奖。

In the 1980s, Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies both studies cells in mice to find how to target individual genes for changes. But the kinds of cells they independently studied could not be used to create gene targeted animals.

在20世纪80年代，Mario Capecchi和Oliver Smithies同时研究小鼠的细胞并发现了如何作用于单一基因使其改变的方法。但是，他们独立研究的这些基因不能被用于建立基因打靶动物。

Martin Evans had the solution. He developed embryonic stem cells that could produce mice that carried new genetic material. The research greatly expended knowledge about embryonic development as well as aging and disease. It led to a new technology-- gene targeting. And this has already produce 500 mouse models of human conditions.

Martin Evans解决了此问题。他研发了可以是小鼠携带新遗传物质的胚胎干细胞。这些研究极大的丰富了胚胎发育的相关内容，同时也扩大了人们对衰老和疾病的认识。这还导致出现了一项新技术---“基因打靶”。并且，现在已经通过该技术建立了500种人类疾病的小鼠模型。