MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

2024 Medicine Nobel Prize goes to team of US researchers

”Ambros and Ruvkun's seminal discovery in the tiny worm C. elegans was unexpected and revealed a new dimension of gene regulation

US researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the 2024 Medicine Nobel Prize for their findings in post-transcriptional gene regulation (microRNA) which have proven “to be of fundamental importance in how organisms develop and function,” it was announced Monday in Stockholm while launching the start of Nobel Prize Week. They were granted some € 970,000 for their contribution to science.

 Aged 72, Ruvkun has spent his career at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he is a professor of genetics while Ambros, two years his junior, is a Professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. For his studies, he has already been awarded a distinction by Harvard University.

The two scientists, who initially worked with the worm Caenorhabditis Elegans, identified small RNA molecules capable of controlling the activity of specific genes. Their research showed that these molecules, now known as microRNAs, play a crucial role in the development and function of organisms. This finding sheds some light on gene regulation, which is essential to understand multicellular organisms, including humans. The human genome encodes more than a thousand different microRNAs, each with the potential to regulate multiple genes, allowing the evolution of increasingly complex organisms.

Alterations in microRNA regulation have been linked to a variety of diseases, including cancer and congenital disorders. Initially greeted with skepticism, this discovery has transformed the understanding of how gene expression is regulated in multicellular organisms.

“Ambros and Ruvkun's seminal discovery in the tiny worm C. elegans was unexpected and revealed a new dimension of gene regulation, essential for all complex life forms,” the Karolinska Institute's Nobel Assembly in Stockholm explained in a statement. ”Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans,” it added.

The Nobel Prize is considered the highest award worldwide. All awarding ceremonies are held in Stockholm, except the one concerning the Peace Prize, which takes place in Oslo. The medicine accolade has been awarded 114 times to a total of 227 laureates, only 13 of them being women. Past winners include Ivan Pavlov (1904) for his experiments using dogs, and Alexander Fleming, who shared the 1945 prize for discovering penicillin. Last year's laureates were Hungarian-American Katalin Karikó and American Drew Weissman, for discoveries that led to the creation of messenger RNA vaccines against Covid-19.

On Tuesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences will announce the winner in physics, followed by chemistry on Wednesday and Literature on Thursday.