Nobel Prize 2024 in medicine for their groundbreaking discovery of microRNA and its crucial role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.

 

Tiny RNAs with profound physiological importance

Gene regulation by microRNA, first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun, has been at work

for hundreds of millions of years. This mechanism has enabled the evolution of

increasingly complex organisms. We know from genetic research that cells and tissues

do not develop normally without microRNAs. Abnormal regulation by microRNA can

contribute to cancer, and mutations in genes coding for microRNAs have been found in

humans, causing conditions such as congenital hearing loss, eye and skeletal disorders.

Mutations in one of the proteins required for microRNA production result in the DICER1

syndrome, a rare but severe syndrome linked to cancer in various organs and tissues.

Ambros and Ruvkun’s seminal discovery in the small worm C. elegans was unexpected,

and revealed a new dimension to gene regulation, essential for all complex life form.