A glance at the winners of the Nobel Prize for chemistry

Members of the media listen as professor Claes Gustafsson, standing by the screen, explain the reasons for the prize during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy in Stockholm, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015. Sweden's Tomas Lindahl, American Paul Modrich and U.S.-Turkish scientist Aziz Sancar won the Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for "mechanistic studies of DNA repair." (Fredrik Sandberg/TT News Agency via AP) SWEDEN OUT (The Associated Press)

STOCKHOLM – The 2015 Nobel Prize in chemistry was announced Wednesday in Stockholm.

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WHO WON THE CHEMISTRY NOBEL?

Sweden's Tomas Lindahl, 77, an emeritus group leader at Francis Crick Institute and Emeritus director of Cancer Research UK at Clare Hall Laboratory in Britain; American Paul Modrich, born in 1946, is investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina; and U.S.-Turkish scientist Aziz Sancar, 69, is a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

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FOR WHAT?

Starting in the 1970s, the three scientists discovered the process by which cells repair damaged DNA.

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SIGNIFICANCE

Understanding the process of DNA repair has helped the development of new cancer treatments.