A Jewish scientist who made a landmark discovery in the fight against hepatitis C was among three professors jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine on Monday. 

The US researcher Harvey J Alter received the prestigious accolade together with Michael Houghton, who is British, and the American Charles M Rice for their work on the deadly disease, which affects 215,000 people in the UK.

The hepatitis c virus, which can cause life-threatening liver damage if left untreated, can be transmitted through blood-to-blood contact.

Prior to the trio’s “seminal” discoveries, the majority of cases were unexplained, the Nobel Assembly said in a release. Professor Alter helped prove in 1972 that an unknown virus was a common cause of chronic hepatitis, it added. 

Years later, Professor Houghton managed to isolate its genome using an untested technique in 1989. Finally, in 1997, Professor Rice found further evidence proving the virus can cause hepatitis. 

The three laureates made possible the development of highly sensitive blood tests and anti-viral drugs, helping save millions of lives around the world, the assembly said.

Mr Alter was born to Jewish parents in New York in 1935.  “Being the son of Jewish parents in New York City, it was preordained that I would become a doctor,” he said, writing for the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases in 2013. 

But while the scientist was drawn to biology, he was also an avid baseball enthusiast and “would have dropped medicine in a millisecond to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers”, he added.

Prof Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Assembly and Committee, said he tried to contact all three laureates but could only reach Professors Alter and Rice.

"I woke them up. They were very surprised. They were definitely not sitting by the phone because I called them a couple of times before without any answer.

"But once I reached them, they were extremely surprised and they were really happy and speechless almost, so it was really fun to talk to them."