Nobel Prize 2024: Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun win Physiology or Medicine award for discovery of microRNA

NEW DELHI: The Nobel Assembly Karolinska Institute, a medical university in Sweden, has announced to award 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. This year’s Nobel Prize 2024 focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity.

This year’s medicine laureates Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun studied a relatively unassuming 1 mm long roundworm, C. elegans.

“Despite its small size, C. elegans possesses many specialised cell types such as nerve and muscle cells also found in larger, more complex animals, making it a useful model for investigating how tissues develop and mature in multicellular organisms,” it said.

“Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (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 DNA.”

Also read Nobel Prize 2024: When, where to watch physics, chemistry, literature, peace award announcements live

Ambros performed the research that led to his prize at Harvard University. He is currently a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Ruvkun's research was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Medical School, where he's a professor of genetics, said Thomas Perlmann, Secretary-General of the Nobel Committee.

Perlmann said he spoke to Ruvkun by phone shortly before the announcement. “It took a long time before he came to the phone and sounded very tired, but he quite rapidly, was quite excited and happy, when he understood what, it was all about,” Perlmann said.

Last year, Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman won the Nobel Prize in medicine 2023 for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.

The Nobel Prize 2024 carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest left by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel.