The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to James E. Rothman, Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells. The 2013 Nobel Prize honours three scientists who have solved the mystery of how the cell organizes its transport system.

A group of Brigham and Women's Hospital, and Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers, and collaborators at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have found a way to use stem cells as drug delivery vehicles. The researchers inserted modified strands of messenger RNA into connective tissue stem cells - called mesenchymal stem cells - which stimulated the cells to produce adhesive surface proteins and secrete interleukin-10, an anti-inflammatory molecule.

A global hunt for genes that influence heart disease risk has uncovered 157 changes in human DNA that alter the levels of cholesterol and other blood fats - a discovery that could lead to new medications. Each of the changes points to genes that can modify levels of cholesterol and other blood fats and are potential drug targets.

Researchers from Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine and CHU de Québec have shown that it is possible to treat venous ulcers unresponsive to conventional treatment with wound dressings made from human skin grown in vitro. A study published recently in the journal Advances in Skin and Wound Care demonstrates how this approach was successfully used to treat venous lower-extremity ulcers in patients who had been chronically suffering from such wounds.

A bioinformatics approach to repurposing drugs resulted in identification of a class of antidepressants as a potential new treatment for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to a study published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Assessing the risk posed to aquatic organisms by the discharge of certain steroids and pharmaceutical products into waterways is often based on a belief that as the compounds degrade, the ecological risks naturally decline. But there's growing sentiment that once in the environment, some of these bioactive organic compounds may transform in a way that makes their presumed impact less certain.

Many viruses and bacteria infect humans through mucosal surfaces, such as those in the lungs, gastrointestinal tract and reproductive tract. To help fight these pathogens, scientists are working on vaccines that can establish a front line of defense at mucosal surfaces. Vaccines can be delivered to the lungs via an aerosol spray, but the lungs often clear away the vaccine before it can provoke an immune response.