# Official Source: Nobel Prize Capecchi Gene Targeting

**Type:** source
**Status:** Useful
**Confidence:** High
**Source Type:** Press Release
**URL:** https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2007/press-release/
**Publisher:** Nobel Prize Outreach / The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet
**Accessed:** 2026-06-18
**Updated:** 2026-06-18

## Summary

The Nobel Prize press release for the 2007 Physiology or Medicine prize announces Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans, and Oliver Smithies as joint laureates for discoveries that made specific gene modifications in mice possible using embryonic stem cells.

## Useful Claims

- The 2007 prize was awarded jointly to Capecchi, Evans, and Smithies for principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.
- The Nobel release describes gene targeting in mice as a technology applied across biomedicine, from basic research to new therapy development.
- Capecchi and Smithies are credited with work toward homologous recombination in mammalian cells, while Evans supplied the embryonic stem-cell route to the mouse germ line.
- The release says Capecchi refined gene-targeting strategies and developed a positive-negative selection method that could be generally applied.
- The release identifies Capecchi as an HHMI investigator and distinguished professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

## Reliability Notes

This is the authoritative Nobel announcement and is high-confidence evidence for the award, laureates, citation language, and Nobel committee's technical framing. It is not a detailed lab history; use original papers and interviews for chronology inside Capecchi's Utah group.

## Related Pages

- [Capecchi Gene Targeting and the Knockout Mouse](capecchi-gene-targeting.md)