The prize in medicine will be awarded this year, to Israeli Prof. Nahum Sonenberg of McGill University in Montreal for his discovery of the proteins that control the protein expression mechanism and their operation, and to professors Gary Ruvkun of Mass General Hospital Department of Molecular Biology and Harvard Medical School and Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the United States for the discovery of the micro- RNA molecules that play a key role in controlling gene expression in natural processes and disease development.