Americans Richard Axel and Linda B. Buck were awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system in human beings.

The pair can get a prize of 10 million kronor (about US$1.3 million) from the Nobel jury at the Karolinska Institute for their gene studies that explained how the human sense of smell functions.

The criteria for winning the prize have not been set specifically. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite who created the awards, just said the winner "shall have made the most important discovery within the field of physiology or medicine."

(Xinhua News Agency October 5, 2004)