Corkman’s son wins Nobel Prize for medicine

Scientist John O’Keefe, whose father hailed from Newmarket, Co Cork, and Norwegian married couple May-Britt and Edvard Moser, have won the Nobel Prize for medicine for discovering the "inner GPS" that helps the brain navigate through the world.

Their findings in rats represent a “paradigm shift” in our knowledge of how cells work together to perform cognitive functions, the Nobel Assembly said.

Research suggests humans have the same system in their brains and the trio’s work could help scientists understand the mechanisms behind Alzheimer’s disease, it added.