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The DNA Fix Nobel

A trio of researchers has won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work elucidating the mechanisms behind how DNA repairs damaged stretches of itself, the New York Times reports.

Tomas Lindahl from the Francis Crick Institute was honored for his studies of base excision repair. Duke University School of Medicine's Paul Modrich won for uncovering how cells fix DNA errors that arise during the DNA replication step of cell division. And the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Aziz Sancar was lauded for his work for describing the mechanism cells rely on to repair UV damage to DNA.

"Their systematic work has made a decisive contribution to the understanding of how the living cell functions, as well as providing knowledge about the molecular causes of several hereditary diseases and about mechanisms behind both cancer development and aging," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences says in a statement.