– Two Americans honored for the discovery of microRNA
The two American researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for the discovery of microRNA, which impacts gene regulation.
Published today at 12:00 p.m.
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Victor Ambros, professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and developmental biologist, Gary Ruvkun, professor at Harvard Medical School and molecular biologist, and Kate Beckinsale, actress, at NASA Ames Research Center
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The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded on Monday to Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun. They are rewarded for their discovery of microRNAs, a new class of tiny RNA molecules playing a crucial role in regulating gene activity.
“This year’s Nobel Prize rewards two scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing the regulation of gene activity,” the jury said in a statement. MicroRNAs “are of fundamental importance for the development and function of organisms.”
Victor Ambros, born in 1953 in Hanover (USA), currently works at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester. Gary Ruvkun, born in 1952 in Berkeley (USA), is a professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.
They published their findings on “a new level of gene regulation” in two separate papers in 1993, which proved to be decisive. Collaboratively, but working separately, they conducted research on a nematode worm, C. elegans, to determine why and when cellular mutations occurred.
Serious illnesses
“Dysregulation of gene regulation can lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes or autoimmunity. This is why understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important objective for several decades,” underlines the jury press release.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Medicine recognized the advances of Hungarian researcher Katalin Kariko and her American colleague Drew Weissman in the development of messenger RNA vaccines, decisive in the fight against Covid-19.
Since 2023, the prize amount has been 11 million Swedish crowns, which corresponds to approximately 910,000 francs. The Nobel season continues in Stockholm on Tuesday with physics, then chemistry on Wednesday, before the highly anticipated literature prizes on Thursday and the peace prize on Friday, the only prize awarded in Oslo. The most recent economy price closes the vintage next Monday.
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