Victor Ambros (L) and Gary Ruvkun (R) were awarded the prize for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.
| Photo Credit: AP
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun have been jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology 2024, the Nobel Academy at the Karolinska Institutet announced on Monday (October 7, 2024).
They were awarded the prestigious prize for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.
“Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were interested in how different cell types develop. They discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation,” The Nobel Assembly said in a press statement.
Ambros and Ruvkun’s groundbreaking discovery, they said, revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. It is now known that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs.
“Understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal for many decades. If gene regulation goes awry, it can lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or autoimmunity,” the Nobel Academy said. Photo: The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén
“Their surprising discovery revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.”
“This year’s Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then on to the cellular machinery for protein production. There, mRNAs are translated so that proteins are made according to the genetic instructions stored in DNA. Since the mid-20th century, several of the most fundamental scientific discoveries have explained how these processes work.,” the citation read further.
The Nobel Academy went on to explain how Ambros and Ruvkun worked together since their days as postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002, alongside Sydney Brenner and John Sulston.
“In the late 1980s, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were In Horvitz’s laboratory, where they studied a relatively unassuming 1 mm long roundworm, C. elegans. Despite its small size, C. elegans possesses many specialized cell types such as nerve and muscle cells also found in larger, more complex animals, making it a useful model for investigating how tissues 3 develop and mature in multicellular organisms. Ambros and Ruvkun were interested in genes that control the timing of activation of different genetic programs, ensuring that various cell types develop at the right time.”
“MicroRNA genes have evolved and expanded within the genomes of multicellular organisms for over 500 million years. Today, we know that there are more than a thousand genes for different microRNAs in humans, and that gene regulation by microRNA – discovered by this year’s medicine laureates – is universal among multicellular organisms.”. Photo: The Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine. Ill. Mattias Karlén
Last year the Nobel Prize for Physiology was jointly awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their “discoveries concerning nucleoside base modification that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19”,
Also read: The Nobel Prize 2024 — an interactive guide
The Prize for Physiology or Medicine kicks off a week of Nobel Prize announcements. The winners for Physics will be announced on October 8, followed by Chemistry on October 9. The winners of the Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences Prize will be declared on October 10, October 11, and October 14 respectively.
The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be awarded on December 10.
Also Read:2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology: What are mRNA vaccines and how do they work? | Explained
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
Published – October 07, 2024 03:03 pm IST
