Stockholm (dpa) - The 2019 Nobel Prize in Medicine has been jointly awarded to US-born scientists William Kaelin and Gregg Semenza and British scientist Peter Ratcliffe for their work on cells' use of oxygen, Sweden's Karolinska Institute announced on Monday.

Their research, the institute said, "paved the way for promising new strategies to fight anaemia, cancer and many other diseases."

Their work on how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability shone light on what the institute called one of life’s "most essential adaptive processes."