The Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to two American scientists who discovered microRNA

Understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal for decades, the Nobel jury said.

If gene regulation goes wrong, it can lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes or autoimmunity.

“Their groundbreaking discovery revealed an entirely new principle of gene regulation that has proven to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans,” the jury said.

Collaborating but working separately, the pair conducted research on a 1-millimeter roundworm, C. elegans, to determine why and when cell mutations occurred.

They discovered microRNAs, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation, which in turn allows each cell to select only relevant instructions.

Their findings were published in two papers in 1993.

“The fundamental discovery of microRNA introduced a new and unexpected mechanism of gene regulation,” Thomas Perlmann, secretary general of the Nobel Assembly, told reporters.

“MicroRNAs are important to our understanding of embryological development, normal cell physiology and diseases such as cancer,” he said.

Ambros, 70, is a professor at the University of Massachusetts, while Ruvkun, 72, is a professor at Harvard Medical School.

The pair will receive their Nobel prize, consisting of a diploma, a gold medal and a check for $1 million, from King Carl XVI Gustaf in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the death in 1896 of the scientist Alfred Nobel, who created awards in his last award. will and testament.

Last year, the medicine prize went to Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman for their work on mRNA (mRNA) technology that paved the way for Covid-19 vaccines.

Nobel season continues this week with the announcement of the winners of the physics prize on Tuesday and the chemistry prize on Wednesday.

These will be followed by the much-anticipated literature awards on Thursday and peace awards on Friday.

The Economics Prize closes on Monday 14 October.

Awarded since 1901, the Nobel Prizes honor those who, in the words of Alfred Nobel, have “conferred the greatest benefit to mankind,” highlighting encouraging progress as the world currently witnesses devastating wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and a climate on the edge. of collapse.

Who deserves the Peace Prize?

For Tuesday’s Nobel Prize in Physics, science experts at Swedish public radio SR suggested the honor could go to Swiss physicist Christoph Gerber, a pioneer in the development of the atomic force microscope.

“This is a microscope that provides 3D images at such an incredibly small scale that they sometimes even have atomic resolution,” said SR science reporter Camilla Widebeck.

The tool has become indispensable in nanotechnology and nano research, she added.

The Clarivate Analysis Group also singled out David Deutsch and Peter Shor for their work on quantum algorithms and quantum computing.

Speculation is also rife for the literature prize, which will be announced on Thursday and perhaps the most anticipated Nobel after the peace prize.

Several pundits believe Chinese author Can Xue will be the Swedish Academy’s choice this year – and she has the lowest odds on several betting sites.

An avant-garde fiction writer often likened to Kafka, her experimental style shifts between utopia and dystopia and transforms the mundane into the surreal.

“I think it will be a woman from a language area outside of Europe,” Bjorn Wiman, culture editor at Sweden’s leading newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, told AFP.

Others suggest it could go to Australian novelist Gerald Murnane, Britain’s Salman Rushdie or Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

The highlight of the week comes on Friday, when the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is announced, but experts say predictions are tougher than ever this year due to the growing number of crises around the world.

The UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, the International Court of Justice and Afghan women’s rights activist Mahbouba Seraj were mentioned as possibilities.

Given the existential risks to humanity posed by weapons systems that can operate autonomously without human control, several Nobel observers have also cited the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots as a potential laureate.

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