A Nobel week
Carolina professor Aziz Sancar traveled to Stockholm where he received the Nobel Prize from The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
More than two months after being awoken by a phone call from Sweden to inform him that he had won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Aziz Sancar has been presented with his Nobel Medal.
Sancar, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, traveled to Stockholm during the week of December 7 to receive the honor from The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
“We congratulate Dr. Sancar on his Nobel Prize for a scientific discovery of the highest order,” said Chancellor Carol L. Folt. “His groundbreaking research on DNA repair is already impacting the health and survival of millions around the world.”
Along with the award ceremony on Dec. 10, Sancar also delivered a lecture and autographed a chair at Bistro Nobel at the Nobel Museum in Stockholm — a tradition for Nobel winners.
Sancar, who has been a professor at UNC since 1982, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry this year for his work on mapping the cellular mechanisms that underlie DNA repair, which occurs every single minute of the day due to outside forces, such as ultraviolet radiation and other environmental factors. In particular, Sancar mapped nucleotide excision repair, which is vital to UV damage to DNA
His work was featured in Stockholm as the professor delivered a lecture Dec. 8. During the hour-long presentation, Sancar discussed his career from first cloning the gene that codes for the enzyme photolyase in his mentor’s lab to uncovering a major repair mechanism our bodies use to keep cancer at bay as we are bombarded with environmental factors, such as sunlight and pollution, which constantly damage DNA in our cells.
Watch Sancar’s lecture
See photos from Sancar’s trip
Read a transcript of Sancar’s speech
Watch a video about the man behind the prize
