http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/medicine-nobel-honors-work-cellular-system-sense-oxygen-levels

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists for their research into how cells detect oxygen and react to hypoxia—conditions when oxygen is low in tissues. The fundamental physiology work has led to a better understanding of how more than 300 genes in the body are regulated, including the one for the hormone erythropoietin (EPO), which controls production of blood cells.

Oxygen sensing is integral to many diseases and numerous drugs are being developed to alter the response of this system to treat everything from cancer to anemia. “Applications of these findings are already beginning to affect how medicine is practiced,” Randall Johnson of Karolinska Institute, who is on the Nobel prize selection committee, told a press conference announcing the prize in Stockholm. "This is a basic aspect of how cells work."