Nobel Prize in medicine awarded to scientists Ambros and Ruvkun for micro-RNA and its role in gene regulation

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded on Monday to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of micro-RNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation, according to the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The discovery centers around on a miniscule class of RNA molecules that play a critical role in determining how organisms grow, function and malfunction, and as they relate to the health of multicellular organisms, including human beings.

Gene regulation helps scientists understand the differences between cell types. When the regulation goes off track it can lead to autoimmune diseases as well as other afflictions such as cancer and diabetes or, the Nobel committee said. Researchers now know that the human genome provides instructions for over 1,000 forms of microRNA.

“This year’s Nobel Prize honors two scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated,” the Swedish Academy explained as soon as it announced the award.

“The information stored within our chromosomes can be likened to an instruction manual for all cells in our body. Every cell contains the same chromosomes, so every cell contains exactly the same set of genes and exactly the same set of instructions. Yet, different cell types, such as muscle and nerve cells, have very distinct characteristics. How do these differences arise? The answer lies in gene regulation, which allows each cell to select only the relevant instructions. This ensures that only the correct set of genes is active in each cell type.”

BREAKING NEWS
The 2024 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. pic.twitter.com/rg3iuN6pgY

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 7, 2024

Amros and Ruvkun were interested in how the different cell types develop and discovered micro-RNAs, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play “a crucial role” in the regulation of genes, according to a report published by the British Broadcasting Channel.

“Its revolutionary discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. Now it is known that the human genome encodes more than a thousand microRNAs,” the news portal highlighted on Oct. 7.

Understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal of scientists for many decades.

An abnormal regulation can contribute to cancer, diabetes or autoimmunity. In humans, mutations have been detected in genes that encode microRNA, causing conditions such as congenital hearing loss and ocular and skeletal disorders.

This year’s Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity,” a statement from the Institute reported. “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.”

In the 1960s it was shown that specialized proteins, known as transcription factors, can bind to specific regions of DNA and control the flow of genetic information by determining what mRNA is produced.

Since then, thousands of transcription factors have been identified, and for a long time it was believed that the fundamental principles of gene regulation had been resolved.

However, in 1993, this year's Nobel laureates published unexpected findings that described a new level of gene regulation, which turned out to be very significant and preserved throughout evolution.

The Nobel Prize in Medicine is the first of the round of these prestigious awards, which will be followed by the announcements in successive days of those of Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace and finally that of Economics, next Monday.