The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024 has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.
"This year’s Nobel Prize honors two scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated," a statement from The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet read.
Ambros and Ruvkun discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation.
The discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans, the statement read.
"It is now known that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs. Their surprising discovery revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function."
Victor Ambros
Born in 1953 in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, Ambrosreceived his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, in 1979. He did his postdoctoral research from 1979 to 1985 in the same university. Ambros became a Principal Investigator at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA in 1985. He was Professor at Dartmouth Medical School from 1992 to 2007. Currently, he is a Professor of Natural Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA.
Gary Ruvkun
Ruvkun was born in Berkeley, California, USA in 1952. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1982. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge from 1982 to 1985. He became a Principal Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in 1985, where he is now Professor of Genetics.