Three Americans have won 2008 Japan Prizes, which each carry a $470,000 award, as well as enormous prestige in Japan, including a ceremony attended by the emperor and empress and national dignitaries. Americans Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, who designed a language for data transmission that gave rise to the Internet, will share the Japan Prize in Information Communication Theory and Technology. Victor A. McKusick, a genetics professor at Johns Hopkins University School of medicine won the prize for medical genetics and genomics.

Cerf, Kahn and McKusick are to receive medals and the award money at a formal presentation April 23 in Tokyo.

McKusick is a key architect of the Human Genome Project and winner of the 2001 National Medal of Science, the United States' highest scientific prize. He also is the twin brother of former Maine Chief Justice Vincent McKusick and a namesake of the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins.

Cerf and Kahn, who designed a language for data transmission that gave rise to the Internet, also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005, which is this nation's highest civil award.

The Japan Prize is funded principally by the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.