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.
Source: www.newscientist.com
