Victor Ambrose and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for their discovery of microRNAs, which play a key role in determining how organisms develop and function — and sometimes how they malfunction.
MicroRNAs are a class of small RNA molecules. Nobel Prize officials said. This discovery revealed a new principle of gene regulation that is important for multicellular organisms, including humans.
Gene regulation determines the differences between cell types, and if it goes off track it can lead to diseases such as cancer, diabetes or autoimmunity, the Nobel team said. Researchers now know that the human genome provides instructions for over 1,000 microRNA patterns that are critical to the growth and function of organisms.
“This has opened up a new understanding of how diseases occur, which means we have new possibilities for modifying them,” said John Lorsch, director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
MicroRNA-based therapies are in clinical trials for heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
Who are the winners?
Dr. Ambrose is from Hanover, NH, and is the Silverman Professor of Natural Sciences at the Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. Mass. Dr. from Berkeley, California. Ruvkun is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Mass Public Research Institute.
The pair began studying gene regulation when they were graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the lab. H. Robert HorwitzOwned a Nobel Prize in 2002.
They continued to collaborate after they established their own labs in 2008 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (with David C. Balcombe of the University of Cambridge), which often precedes Nobel Prizes, for their work on the “unexpected world of small RNAs”.
Dr. Ruvkun studied biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Dr. Ambrose received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT
Why were they awarded?
The RNA molecule, or ribonucleic acid, helps high school biology students carry instructions from DNA to cells to make proteins.
Dr. Ambrose and Dr. Ruvkun et al.’s findings that this process is so fundamental that it is often referred to as a “central principle of molecular biology” can be quite complex.
Their work focused on microRNAs, which, as the name suggests, are much smaller than their RNA counterpart. While regular RNA may contain hundreds or even thousands of basic building blocks, microRNA may contain only dozens.
In their work, a millimeter-sized roundworm, c. elegans, scientists often use it in basic research because it has a simple anatomy packed with many different types of cells.
Dr. Lorsch, a graduate student working one floor above Dr. Ruvkun’s lab, watched the discovery unfold in real time.
Dr. Ruvkun walked up a flight of stairs to Dr. Larsh’s lab, as he often does, bouncing ideas off graduate students, and caught a picture of a novel molecule called microRNA attached to a large strand of RNA.
“What do you think is going on here?” He asked.
Dr. Dr. Lorsch shrugs his shoulders at graduate students who generally say “it doesn’t help him.” Ruvkun went back down with his discovery.
But what the two Nobel laureates eventually showed was that microRNAs act as “regulators” of the process of producing proteins, telling the large RNA when to slow down or stop.
This is important because too much or too little of a given protein can lead to a variety of diseases, such as cancer or osteoporosis. Mutations in genes containing the instructions for microRNAs have been linked to congenital hearing loss, eye and bone disorders, Nobel Prize officials said.
The discovery, first described in 1993, was twofold separate Papers Published in the journal Cell, it was initially met with “almost deafening silence,” the Nobel team wrote, because many scientists believed the process was unique to the worm studied by Dr. Ambrose and Dr. Ruvkun, not humans or other complex animals.
However, researchers have identified thousands of microRNA patterns in humans and other animals, confirming that this new principle of gene regulation is “essential to all complex life forms,” Nobel Prize officials said.
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Who will win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2023?
Kathleen Carrico and Drew Weissman recognized the work that led to the development of powerful Covid vaccines – which are being administered to billions around the world.
When will other Nobel Prizes be announced?
The prize in physiology or medicine is the first of six Nobel prizes awarded this year. Each award recognizes outstanding contributions by an individual or organization in a specific field.
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The Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded on Tuesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L’Huillier shared the prize for work that allowed scientists to image the motions of subatomic particles moving at impossible speeds.
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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded on Wednesday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, the prize went to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for their discovery and creation of quantum dots, which are expected to lead to advances in electronics, solar cells and encrypted quantum information.
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The Nobel Prize for Literature is awarded by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on Thursday. Last year, Norway’s Jan Foss was honored for plays and prose that “gave voice to the voiceless.”
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The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded by the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo on Friday. Last year, Narkes Mohammadi, an activist in Iran, was recognized “for her struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and her struggle to promote human rights and freedom for all.” Ms Mohammadi is serving a 10-year sentence in an Iranian prison, where her lawyers have expressed concern for her well-being.
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Next week, the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be awarded on Monday by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Last year, Claudia Goldin received the award for her research into the causes of gender gaps in labor force participation and earnings.
All prize announcements Broadcast live by the Nobel Prize Organization.
