Two Americans and a Briton shared the Nobel Prize in medicine Oct. 8 for groundbreaking stem-cell research on mice that helped establish the role of individual genes in human ailments.

Mario R. Capecchi (pictured), Oliver Smithies and Sir Martin J. Evans were honored for a technique called gene targeting, which lets scientists deactivate or modify particular genes in mice.

That in turn lets them study how those genes affect health and disease.

France's Albert Fert and German Peter Grunberg won the Nobel Prize in physics for work that has shrunk the size of hard discs and paved the way for products such as the iPod.