Michael Houghton awarded Nobel Prize

A British scientist has been awarded a Nobel prize for his role in identifying the hepatitis C virus, a breakthrough that has helped save millions of lives.

Michael Houghton, who studied at the University of East Anglia and King’s College London and is now based in Canada, will share this year’s prize for physiology or medicine with two Americans, Harvey Alter and Charles Rice. The Nobel committee said their work had paved the way for radical improvements in healthcare by revealing a viral source of blood-borne hepatitis. “Thanks to their discovery, highly sensitive blood tests for the virus are now available and these have essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis in many parts of the world,” the committee said.