The three researchers – Harvey J Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M Rice – were together recognised for their work in the 1980s.
The medicine prize is the first of those due to be given out this week and has taken on particular significance amid the global coronavirus outbreak.
The Nobel Committee appeared to gesture towards that context when it praised the scientists for their work on a “landmark achievement in the ongoing battle against viral diseases”.
The researchers’ discoveries have helped to save millions of lives.
But the fight against the virus continues, with blood-borne hepatitis still causing more than a million deaths per year.
“Harvey J Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M Rice made seminal discoveries that led to the identification of a novel virus, Hepatitis C virus,” the Nobel Committee said.
“Prior to their work, the discovery of the Hepatitis A and B viruses had been critical steps forward, but the majority of blood-borne hepatitis cases remained unexplained. The discovery of Hepatitis C virus revealed the cause of the remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made possible blood tests and new medicines that have saved millions of lives.”
The three researchers were recognised for separate work that together helped discover and then fight the virus.
Prof Alter first demonstrated that an unknown virus was causing chronic hepatitis, Prof Houghton used a strategy to isolate the genome of that new virus, and Prof Rice provided the final evidence to show that the Hepatitis C virus alone could cause the disease.
