By Krista Conger

Thomas Sudhof won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Neuroscientist Thomas Sdhof, MD, professor of molecular and cellular physiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

He shared the prize with James Rothman, PhD, a former Stanford professor of biochemistry, and Randy Schekman, PhD, who earned his doctorate at Stanford under the late Arthur Kornberg, MD, another winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The three were awarded the prize "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells." Rothman is now a professor at Yale University, and Schekman is a professor at UC-Berkeley.

"I'm absolutely surprised," said Sdhof, 57, who was in the remote town of Baeza in Spain to attend a conference and give a lecture. "Every scientist dreams of this. I didn't realize there was chance I would be awarded the prize. I am stunned and really happy to share the prize with James Rothman and Randy Schekman."

Sdhof noted that, although he hasn't directly worked with either of the other winners, their work was complementary and he called the Nobel committee "ingenious" in pairing the three of them. The researchers will share a prize that totals roughly $1.2 million, with about $413,600 going to each.

"Tom Sdhof has done brilliant work that lays a molecular basis for neuroscience and brain chemistry," said Roger Kornberg, PhD, Stanford's Mrs. George A. Winzer Professor in Medicine. Kornberg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2006. He is the son of Arthur Kornberg, in whose lab Schekman received his doctorate.

Robert Malenka, MD, Stanford's Nancy Friend Pritzker Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is at the conference in Spain with Sdhof, a close collaborator. "He's dazed, tired and happy," Malenka said by phone. "The only time I've seen him happier was when his children were born."

Sdhof, the Avram Goldstein Professor in the School of Medicine, received the award for his work in exploring how neurons in the brain communicate with one another across gaps called synapses. Although his work has focused on the minutiae of how molecules interact on the cell membranes, the fundamental questions he's pursuing are large.

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Thomas Südhof wins Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine