The Nobel Meeting on the Karolinska Institutet awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Drugs collectively to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the invention of microRNA, a brand new class of tiny RNA molecules that play an important position in gene regulation. Ambros, 70, is a professor on the College of Massachusetts Medical College whereas Ruvkun, 72, is a professor at Harvard Medical College.
“Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a very new precept of gene regulation that turned out to be important for multicellular organisms, together with people.It’s now recognized that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs. Their shocking discovery revealed a completely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be basically necessary for a way organisms develop and performance,” institute has mentioned in an official assertion.
Analysis on a small worm C. elegans led to the invention of the microRNA. In 1993, the duo printed sudden findings describing a brand new stage of gene regulation, which turned out to be extremely important and conserved all through evolution.
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun had been postdoctoral fellows within the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002, alongside Sydney Brenner and John Sulston.
The pair will obtain their prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1 million cheque, from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a proper ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 demise of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his final will and testomony.
What are microRNAs?
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding RNA molecules that play an important position in regulating gene expression. They’ve emerged as necessary biomarkers and therapeutic targets since they’ll affect numerous mobile processes, together with improvement, differentiation, proliferation, and apoptosis.
miRNAs have potential use in diagnostics. Since they’re concerned within the regulation of genes related to ailments, particular miRNAs can function biomarkers for numerous circumstances, together with most cancers, cardiovascular ailments, and neurodegenerative issues. In therapeutics, miRNAs provide promise as drug targets. Modulating miRNA exercise can appropriate dysregulated gene expression related to ailments. These approaches are at the moment being explored for treating most cancers, fibrosis, and viral infections, together with HIV and hepatitis.
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miRNAs are being studied for his or her position in personalised drugs, as they may help customise remedies based mostly on the idea of miRNA profile, making the remedy extra exact.
Final 12 months, the medication prize went to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for work on messenger RNA (mRNA) expertise that paved the best way for Covid-19 vaccines.
(With inputs from AFP)
