Turk among winners of chemistry Nobel for DNA repair

A Turkish scientist is among the three pioneering scientists, who have been awarded with the 2015 Nobel chemistry prize for their work on mapping how cells repair damaged DNA.

Sweden's Tomas Lindahl, the U.S.-based Paul Modrich and Turkish-born Aziz Sancar were named as the winners at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on Wednesday morning. Their work has been called “fundamental for living cells."

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited the researchers for work showing how cells protect genetic information. “Their work has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer treatments," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

The Sweden-based academy's winning prize has been announced as 8 million Swedish crowns ($969,000).The prize money has been divided among the winners.

Last year's chemistry prize was awarded to Stefan Hell of Germany and Eric Betzig and William Moerner, both from the U.S., for finding ways to make microscopes more powerful than previously thought possible, said The Washington Post.

BBC said The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded Tuesday to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur McDonald for their work on neutrinos. The Nobel announcements continue with literature on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday and the economics award on Monday.