THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
New Delhi, Oct 7: The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm announced on Monday that the Nobel Prize in Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun.
The American biologists have been jointly honoured with the prestigious award for their discovery of microRNA and its role in regulating gene expression post-transcription.
The Nobel Assembly at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute Medical University selects the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, who are awarded a sum of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
“Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were interested in how different cell types develop. They discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation,” The Nobel Assembly said in a press statement.
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Ambros and Ruvkun’s groundbreaking discovery unveiled a completely new mechanism of gene regulation, which the Nobel Assembly stated is vital for multicellular organisms, including humans. It is now known that the human genome contains over a thousand microRNAs.
The Nobel Assembly stated that their discovery has been crucial in understanding how organisms, including humans, grow and function.
“Their surprising discovery revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function,” the statement added.
“This year’s Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. 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. Since the mid-20th century, several of the most fundamental scientific discoveries have explained how these processes work,” the statement further added.
