Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine awarded

The first of this year's Nobel Prize awards were announced in the division of physiology or medicine on Monday.

This year's award is split three ways between researchers William G. Kaelin, Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza "for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability".

Ratcliffe is based at the Francis Crick Institute in London, while Kaelin and Semenza are based at Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University respectively.

The impact of work on how cells adapt to oxygen levels is relevant to everything from pregnancy to altitude sickness to cancer and wound healing.

Since it was first established in 1901, the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded 109 times to 216 scientists.

Each Nobel Prize is set at nine million Swedish krona – that's about $909,000. If there's more than one winner, they have to split the reward.

Last year's winners were James P Allison and Tasuku Honjo, who shared the prize for their work on cancer treatments which involve harnessing the body's immune system.

The physics prize will be announced on Tuesday and the chemistry prize on Wednesday.