Sweden's Tomas Lindahl, Paul Modrich of the US and Turkish-American Aziz Sancar on Wednesday won the Nobel Chemistry Prize for work on how cells repair damaged DNA, the jury said.

The three were honoured "for having mapped, at a molecular level, how cells repair damaged DNA and safeguard the genetic information. Their work has provided fundamental knowledge of how a living cell functions and is, for instance, used for the development of new cancer treatments," the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences said.