Question: Which disease did the 1970 Nobel laureates affiliated with Washington University winner make significant progress in understanding during his career ?

text: List of Nobel laureates affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis
Laureates

The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Karolinska Institute, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals who make outstanding contributions in the fields of chemistry, physics, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. They were established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, which dictates that the awards should be administered by the Nobel Foundation. Another prize, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, was established in 1968 by the Sveriges Riksbank, the central bank of Sweden, for contributors to the field of economics. Each prize is awarded by a separate committee; the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, and Economics, the Karolinska Institute awards the Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Prize in Peace. Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a cash prize that has varied throughout the years. In 1901, the winners of the first Nobel Prizes were given 150,782 SEK, which is equal to 7,731,004 SEK in December 2007. In 2008, the winners were awarded a prize amount of 10,000,000 SEK. The awards are presented in Stockholm in an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death. As of 2014, there have been 23 laureates affiliated with Washington University in St. Louis. Washington University considers laureates who attended the university as undergraduate students, graduate students or were members of the faculty as affiliated laureates. Arthur Compton, the chancellor of the university from 1945 to 1953, was the first laureate affiliated with the university, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1927. Four Nobel Prizes were shared by Washington University laureates; Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Spencer Gasser won the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Carl Ferdinand Cori and wife Gerty Cori won the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Arthur Kornberg and Severo Ochoa won the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and Daniel Nathans and George Davis Snell won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Year Laureate Relation Category Rationale
1927 Arthur Compton Faculty of Arts and Sciences , 1920-1923 and 1945-1962 , Chancellor , 1945-1953 Physics for his discovery of the effect named after him
1943 Edward Adelbert Doisy Faculty of Medicine , 1919-1923 Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the chemical nature of vitamin K
1944 Joseph Erlanger Chairman , Department of Physiology , 1910-1946 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres
1944 Herbert Spencer Gasser Faculty of Medicine , 1916-1931 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries relating to the highly differentiated functions of single nerve fibres
1947 Carl Ferdinand Cori Faculty of Medicine , 1931-1984 Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen
1947 Gerty Cori Faculty of Medicine , 1931-1957 Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen
1959 Arthur Kornberg Chairman , Department of Microbiology , 1952-1959 Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid
1959 Severo Ochoa Faculty of Medicine , 1940-1942 Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid
1969 Alfred Hershey Faculty of Medicine , 1934-1950 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses
1970 Luis Federico Leloir Faculty of Medicine , 1944 Chemistry for his discovery of sugar nucleotides and their role in the biosynthesis of carbohydrates
1971 Earl Wilbur Sutherland Jr M.D . , 1942 , Resident in Internal Medicine , 1943-1945 , Faculty of Medicine , 1945-1953 Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries concerning the mechanisms of the action of hormones
1974 Christian de Duve Faculty of Medicine , 1946-1947 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning the structural and functional organization of the cell
1978 Daniel Nathans M.D. , 1954 Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics
1978 Hamilton O. Smith Washington University Medical Service , 1956-1957 Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of restriction enzymes and their application to problems of molecular genetics
1980 Paul Berg Faculty of Medicine , 1954-1959 Chemistry for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids , with particular regard to recombinant-DNA
1980 George Davis Snell Faculty of Arts and Sciences , 1933-1934 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning genetically determined structures on the cell surface that regulate immunological reactions
1986 Stanley Cohen Faculty of Arts and Sciences , 1953-1959 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of growth factors
1986 Rita Levi-Montalcini Faculty of Arts and Sciences , 1948- Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of growth factors
1992 Edwin G. Krebs M.D. , 1943 , Resident in Internal Medicine , Research Fellow in Biological Chemistry , 1945-1948 Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries concerning reversible protein phosphorylation as a biological regulatory mechanism
1993 Douglass North Faculty of Arts and Sciences , 1983- Economics for having renewed research in economic history by applying economic theory and quantitative methods in order to explain economic and institutional change