New knowledge about a cancer pharmaceutical led to the Sjöberg Prize
Benjamin L. Ebert, USA, receives this year’s Sjöberg Prize, worth one million US dollars, for his research into how lenalidomide works as a treatment for blood cancer. His discovery of the mechanism that promotes protein breakdown in cancer cells may be vitally important to the future development of new pharmaceuticals.The story of this pharmaceutical begins with a tragedy as, in the 1950s and 1960s, pregnant women with severe morning sickness were sometimes given thalidomide. This caused a range of birth defects and the medication was removed from the market. Years later, thalidomide