LAST UPDATE 15:13
The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA, a new subunit of the RNA molecule, which plays a vital role in the regulation of gene activity.
“This year’s Nobel Prize rewards two scientists for discovering a fundamental principle governing the regulation of gene activity,” the committee said in a statement.
“Their revolutionary discovery revealed an entirely new principle of gene expression regulation that is of great importance to multicellular organisms, including humans,” according to the release.
microRNAs are of fundamental importance in the development and function of organisms.
Victor Ambrose, 70, and Gary Ravkin, 72, published in 1993 in two separate papers their discovery of a “new level of gene expression regulation” that proved to be critical.
Together, but working independently, they researched a millimeter-long worm, C. elegans, to find out why and when cellular mutations occur.
“Dysregulation of gene regulation can cause serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes or autoimmunity. For this reason, understanding the regulation of gene expression has been an important topic for many years,” says the announcement.
Last year, the Nobel Prize in Medicine honored the work of Hungarian researcher Katalin Kariko and her American colleague Drew Wiseman in the development of messenger RNA vaccines, which was decisive in the fight against Covid-19.
The prize is accompanied by a sum of money of 11 million crowns (920,000 euros), the highest in Nobel history.
Reactions of awarded scientists
“It’s huge! It’s an earthquake!”. This was the first reaction of Gary Ravkin on the Swedish public radio SR in the first minutes after the announcement of the Nobel committee awarding him and his compatriot Viktor Ambrose for the discovery of microRNA.
“The dog doesn’t understand why it’s night out and we’re running up and down the house.”
The Nobel committee woke the 72-year-old biologist at dawn because of the time difference, and promised to be there to celebrate at the December 10 award ceremony in Stockholm.
“We have been to the Nobel party many times. Anyone imagined that a group of scientists can be revelers, but they really are.”
The runner-up, Victor Ambrose, was equally enthusiastic.
“Wow! It’s incredible! I didn’t know that,” he told a SR network reporter.
Viktor Ambros, who thinks it is “amazing” that he will share the Nobel with Ravkin, said: “We each made our discoveries in our laboratory that contributed to our understanding of microRNAs.”