Archives for October 2013

Cellular Transport and the Nobel Prize for Medicine

nobel medal in medicine

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was announced yesterday [1]. The prize was awarded to three U.S. scientists for their work on how the cell coordinates its transport system to shuttle proteins and other molecules from one location to another.

The prize of 8-million-Swedish-krona ($1.2-million USD) was divided evenly to Randy W. Schekman, age 65, at the University of California at Berkeley; James E. Rothman, age 63, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; and Thomas C. Südhof, age 58, at Stanford University, for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in cells.

Study Finds Generally Lower Premiums from Health Insurance Marketplace

Open enrollment in the new Health Insurance Marketplace — a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) — began today, allowing individuals and families to purchase private insurance for coverage beginning January 1, 2014. A new Kaiser Family Foundation study provides an early look at insurance premiums in 2014 [1]. The report finds that U.S. consumers generally will see lower health insurance premiums through the marketplace.

Health insurance premiums