On Wednesday, professors from Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This has prompted a joint celebration by rival universities. The scientists, including Paul Modrich of Duke and Aziz Sancar of UNC, have been awarded for their decades of work in understanding how cells repair damaged DNA.

Swedish scientist Tomas Lindahl, an emeritus leader at Francis Crick Institute and emeritus director of Cancer Research UK at Clare Hall Laboratory in England, has shared the $960,000 prize with them.

According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the work done by the scientists has given the fundamental knowledge regarding the functioning of a living cell functions. The work done can also be used to develop new ways for cancer treatment.

Though the scientists have done research in similar general field, the three men have worked separately on the discoveries for which they have been awarded the Nobel.

Modrich is a 69-year-old James B. Duke professor of biochemistry at Duke’s medical school. He is also among the members of the Duke Cancer Institute and is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Turkish-born Sancar is a 69-year-old Sarah Graham Kenan professor of biochemistry at UNC’s medical school. Sancar is the second Turk, who has won a Nobel Prize.

For a news conference, leaders from the two universities gathered in Chapel Hill at a research building, which was beautiful decorated with Carolina blue and Duke blue balloons. At the achievement, the Nobel winners were humble, nearly speechless, and gave all the credit to their faculty mentors and their graduate students.

“DNA damage causes cancer. DNA damage is used to treat cancer with radiation therapy and chemotherapy. And DNA damage causes the side effects of cancer treatment,” he said. “It can’t get more important for cancer than that. The three individuals that are being honored with the Nobel Prize this year have made extraordinary contributions in our understanding of the DNA repair process.”

“Now we can say to a fellow scientist, ‘Tell us the gene you’re interested in or any spot on the genome, and we’ll tell you how it is repaired,’” Sancar said in May, when the mapping was announced by UNC. “Out of six billion base pairs, pick out a spot and we’ll tell you how it is repaired.”