Australian-born Elizabeth Blackburn, British-born Jack Szostak and Carol Greider won the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns (US$1.42 million), Sweden’s Karolinska Institute said.

Blackburn is with the University of California, San Francisco, Greider is with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and Szostak is at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Medicine is traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. The prizes for achievement in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.