Victor Ambrose and Gary Lubukun announced as winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Jonathan Knackstrand AFP (via Getty Images)
The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be Victor Ambros and Gary Rabukun For the discovery of small RNAs called microRNAs, which play an important role in regulating gene activity in animals and plants.
They are important because a single microRNA can control many different genes. A single gene may be regulated by multiple microRNAs.
“The seminal discovery of microRNAs has introduced a new and unexpected mechanism of gene regulation,” he said. Ole KampeVice-Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology and Medicine. “These are important for understanding embryological development, normal physiology, and diseases such as cancer.”
Ambros and Lubukun made this discovery while studying a mutant strain of nematode called . Caenorhabditis elegans. Their research began in the 1980s when they were in the same lab. Ambrose then moved to Harvard University and Lubukun to Massachusetts General Hospital, where they continued their research on mutant strains.
The instructions for making proteins are stored in DNA in the cell’s nucleus. RNA copies of these instructions, called messenger RNA, carry this information to protein manufacturing factories outside the nucleus. Messenger RNA (mRNA) can be several thousand RNA characters long.
One way to control gene activity is to stop mRNA production in the first place. The other is to prevent mRNA from reaching protein manufacturing factories. In both cases, the result is that the production of the protein encoded by the gene is prevented and, as biologists say, the gene is switched off.
MicroRNAs work in the second way. They are small RNAs, about 20 base pairs in length, whose sequences are complementary to parts of one or more mRNAs. When a microRNA binds to its complementary sequence on an mRNA, the mRNA is typically degraded before proteins are made.
MicroRNAs typically act within cells, but they can also be released by cells to control activities elsewhere in the body. In some cases, organisms even release microRNAs to control other organisms. This is usually done by disease-causing microorganisms, but it was recently discovered that certain symbiotic fungi release microRNAs to help colonize tree roots.
Many groups are working on microRNA-based therapies. but so far it has not been approved. The presence or absence of microRNAs can also help diagnose certain medical conditions.
Ambrose and Lubukun first discovered microRNAs in research conducted in the 1990s. But what they discovered was lin-4it was thought that only one gene was regulated and the mechanism was unique to C. elegans. For this reason, their findings received little attention.
In 2000, Ruvkun reported the discovery of another microRNA called . let 7. It controls five genes and was found to be widespread in animals. This has led to great interest in microRNAs, and thousands of microRNAs have now been discovered in a variety of organisms.
thomas perlmanthe secretary general of the Nobel Prize Assembly, said he had not yet contacted Mr. Ambrose, but had spoken to Mr. Lubukun and his wife. “They were excited to receive the award and to come to Stockholm,” Perlman said.
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine will be Katalin Carrico and Drew Wiseman He was credited with devising a way to fine-tune mRNA to avoid its destruction by the immune system, which was key to the development of mRNA vaccines, including the covid-19 vaccine.
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