Thomas lindahl nobel prize

We had some great news today as one of our fantastic scientists, Tomas Lindahl, was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar.

It brings the Cancer Research UK tally of Nobel Prizes to seven. And our chief executive, Harpal Kumar, was particularly thrilled with the news.

“I’m absolutely delighted for Tomas, one of our most brilliant scientists and leaders. This award is thoroughly deserved,” he told us.

“Thanks to his vision and creative genius, he was one of the first scientists to spot the process of DNA repair – something we now know plays a fundamental role in the development of cancer. His work led to a deeper understanding of why the disease develops and, crucially for patients, treatments that target cancer’s weak spots in DNA repair.”

Tomas was the first director of Cancer Research UK-funded labs at Clare Hall in London, when it opened in 1986. Under his inspirational leadership, it became, and remains, a world-leading centre for studying how cells repair their DNA.

A Swedish born scientist, Tomas made the pioneering discovery that DNA inside cells was continually damaged through normal every day wear and tear, and for cells to survive they must somehow have the ability to repair this damage. At the time, this was a ground-breaking new concept.

He went on to discover several important families of molecules that help patch up mistakes in our DNA. And this pioneering work truly revolutionised the field of cancer research, as we explore below.

1. A whole new research field

Faults in DNA repair play a key role in cancer developing, and is an active field of research that scientists, including many mentored by Tomas, are still pursuing.

Crucially for patients, the discovery has also led to a whole toolbox of treatments to beat cancer.

2. Better treatments

Scientists used the understanding of DNA damage and repair to design c

One of the three 2015 Nobel Laureates in chemistry, Tomas Lindahl, made his award-winning discoveries at Karolinska Institutet in the 1970s. Despite the competition for resources, a post as a research associate made it possible for him to do research, as he explains in an interview, in which he also talks about his former colleagues at KI.

Congratulations on winning the chemistry prize. How have you been celebrating?

“I’ve not had time to do much celebrating, what with all the emails and phone calls I’ve had to answer. But I cracked open a good vintage last night. I love wine, so it was a good excuse!”

The crucial discoveries that earned you the prize were made at Karolinska Institutet in the 1970s. How did you find the research environment at KI back then?

“There was some squabbling and a lot of competing for resources. And I wasn’t the one to draw the longest straw either. But it was thanks to my research associateship I had from the research council that I could concentrate on my work.”

Was the lack of resources a reason for your leaving KI?

“In part. I’d met my wife and wanted to live with her. But I’d also been given an offer from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, now Cancer Research UK, to set up a powerful new research environment. It would’ve been hard to do that in Sweden. I was made director of the new institution, Clare Hall Laboratories in Hertfordshire, which focused on DNA repair and the mechanisms of DNA replication.”

Did you realise at the time that you’d made such an important breakthrough?

“In a way. But I can’t put my finger on any specific moment. Discoveries are based, as you might know, on a series of experiments that take time to do, but as we progressed it started to dawn on me that we’d come across something new and important.”

How fully did your colleagues in the scientific community grasp the importance of your discoveries?

“Often when you do something ne

Swedish-British scientist

Tomas Robert Lindahl (born 28 January 1938) is a Swedish-British scientist specialising in cancer research. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with American chemist Paul L. Modrich and Turkish chemist Aziz Sancar for mechanistic studies of DNA repair.

Education

Lindahl was born in Kungsholmen, Stockholm, Sweden to Folke Robert Lindahl and Ethel Hulda Hultberg. He received a PhD degree in 1967, and an MD degree qualification in 1970, from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.

Career and research

After obtaining his research doctorate, Lindahl did postdoctoral research at Princeton University and Rockefeller University. He was professor of medical chemistry at the University of Gothenburg 1978–82. After moving to the United Kingdom he joined the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) as a researcher in 1981. From 1986 to 2005 he was the first Director of Cancer Research UK's Clare Hall Laboratories in Hertfordshire, since 2015 part of the Francis Crick Institute. He continued to research there until 2009. He has contributed to many papers on DNA repair and the genetics of cancer.

Awards and honours

Lindahl was elected an EMBO Member in 1974 and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1988, his certificate of election reads:

Dr. Tomas Lindahl is noted for his contributions to the comprehension of DNA repair at the molecular level in bacterial and mammalian cells. He was the first to isolate a mammalian DNA ligase and to describe a totally unanticipated novel group of DNA glycosylases as mediators of DNA excision repair. He has also discovered a unique class of enzymes