The discovery of microRNA molecules, which control gene behavior, by American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun earned them the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology on Monday.
MicroRNA molecules function as a kind of instruction manual, guiding how cells with identical chromosomes differ in their properties.
“This year’s Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to process gene activity,” according to the Nobel Prize’s statement. “Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA, or 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 the DNA. Since the 20th century, several of the most fundamental scientific discoveries have explained how these processes work.”
In the 1980s, Ambros and Ruvkun conducted research on a 1-millimeter roundworm that had numerous specialized cell types.
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Although their research is today recognized as providing a gateway to such findings, it was largely disregarded by the scientific world at the time.
Ambros is currently a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He was born in New Hampshire.Californian by birth, Ruvkun teaches genetics at Harvard University Medical School.
The first came to be known for their pioneering work and discoveries when they began working together as postdoctoral student fellows in Robert Horvitz’s laboratory in the late 1980s.
