Cellular breakthrough earns 3 US-based scientists Nobel Prize for medicine

3 US-based scientists were awarded this year's Nobel medicine prize for medicine on Monday.

James Rothman, 62, a professor at Yale University, Randy Schekman, 64, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and German-born Thomas Suedhof, 57, a professor at Stanford University, won the prize of 1.2 million dollars for plotting how vital materials like hormones and brain chemicals are transported within cells and secreted to act on the body, giving insight into diseases like diabetes and Alzheimer's, News24 reported.

The researchers separately mapped out one of the body's critical networks that uses tiny bubbles known as vesicles to ferry chemicals like insulin within cells.

The system, which also describes how vesicles transport molecules to the cell surface for secretion, is so critical and sensitive that errors and disruption in the mechanism can lead to serious illness or death.