A collection of the Nobel lectures delivered by the prizewinners in physiology or medicine for the period 1996-2000. Each lecture is based on the work for which the laureate was awarded the prize. The following is a list of the Nobel laureates during 1996-2000 with a description of the works that won them their prizes: P.C. Doherty and R.M. Zinkernagel (1996) - for their discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence; S.B. Prusiner (1997) -for his discovery of "prisons - a new biological principle of infection"; R.F. Furchgott, L.J. Ignarro and F. Murad (1998) - for their discoveries concerning nitric oxide as a signalling molecule in the cardiovascular system; G. Blobel (1999) - for the discovery that "proteins have intrinsic signals that govern their transport and localization in the cell"; A. Carlsson, P. Greengard and E.R. Kandel (2000) - for their discoveries concerning "signal transduction in the nervous system".

Physiology or medicine was the third prize area Alfred Nobel mentioned in his will. Nobel had an active interest in medical research. He came into contact with Swedish physiologist Jöns Johansson through Karolinska Institute around 1890. Johansson worked for a brief period in Nobel's laboratory in Sevran, France during the same year. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute. This volume is a collection of the Nobel lectures delivered by the Nobel Laureates, together with their biographies and the presentation speeches for the period 2006-2010.List of Laureates and their award citations:(2006) Andrew Z Fire and Craig C Mello — for their discovery of RNA interference-gene silencing by double-stranded RNA;(2007) Mario R Capecchi, Martin J Evans and Oliver Smithies — for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells;(2008) Harald zur Hausen — for his discovery of human papilloma viruses causing cervical cancer, and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier — for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus;(2009) Elizabeth H Blackburn, Carol W Greider and Jack W Szostak — for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase;(2010) Robert G Edwards — for the development of in vitro fertilization.