TWO AMERICANS' ARDOR ABOUT ODOR WINS NOBEL

Published: Tuesday, October 5, 2004

NEWS 03A

By Malcolm Ritter

Associated Press

Two Americans won the Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday for discovering how people can recognize an estimated 10,000 odors, from spoiled meat to a lover's perfume.

Dr. Richard Axel, 58, of Columbia University, and Linda B. Buck, 57, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, revealed odor-sensing proteins in the nose and traced how they send their information to the brain.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, said it chose the pair for the $1.3 million prize not because of any practical payoff from the work but simply because they enhanced understanding of "the most enigmatic of our senses.''

For two scientists to single-handedly map one of the major human senses is unique in the history of science, Nobel assembly chairman Goeran Hansson said.

"It's pretty amazing to be able to sit here in the 21st century and reward discoveries that explain one of the human senses,'' he said.

Buck said she had not even known she was under consideration. "People have said things like, 'You should win the Nobel Prize,' '' she said. "I feel very honored, of course.''

Axel said sharing the prize with Buck was "a joy and a deep honor. . . . I'm very surprised and very happy.'' He also said that the work might ultimately help scientists develop better insect repellants to keep away mosquitoes that transmit malaria, for example.

In 1991, Axel and Buck jointly reported discovering a large family of genes devoted to producing different odor-sensing proteins, called receptors, in the nose. Before that, scientists could only guess at how many different receptors were needed to distinguish smells.

Scientists now know that people have about 350 to 400 types of odor receptors.

The Nobel assembly said it is still unclear what the medical and scientific implications of the discoveries will be, but the work could affect areas from psychology -- to explain why scents often remind us of childhood -- to cooking, because scent and taste are intertwined.

Illustration: Photo appeared in newspaper, not in the archive.

Photo caption: (1) Dr. Richard Axel
(2) Linda B. Buck

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