Two Americans win Medicine or Physiology Nobel Prize (and two contests)

Two Americans, Gary Ruvkun of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, and Victor Ambrose of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, have split this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of microRNAs (miRNAs), single-stranded bits of RNA that do not code for proteins but act to regulate other genes.  The Nobel organization’s press release explains the significance of the discovery, but you can read the whole thing, which is much longer than this:

This year’s Nobel Prize honors two scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated.

The information stored within our chromosomes can be likened to an instruction manual for all cells in our body. Every cell contains the same chromosomes, so every cell contains exactly the same set of genes and exactly the same set of instructions. Yet, different cell types, such as muscle and nerve cells, have very distinct characteristics. How do these differences arise? The answer lies in gene regulation, which allows each cell to select only the relevant instructions. This ensures that only the correct set of genes is active in each cell type.

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. Their groundbreaking discovery revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. It is now known that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs. Their surprising discovery revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.

And here’s how it started: as so often, with a seemingly minor observation that blew up big time, leading to generalizations about control of gene expression in all organisms—even viruses (but not bacteria).

In the late 1980s, Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were postdoctoral fellows in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2002, alongside Sydney Brenner and John Sulston. In Horvitz’s laboratory, they studied a relatively unassuming 1 mm long roundworm, C. elegans. Despite its small size, C. elegans possesses many specialized cell types such as nerve and muscle cells also found in larger, more complex animals, making it a useful model for investigating how tissues develop and mature in multicellular organisms. Ambros and Ruvkun were interested in genes that control the timing of activation of different genetic programs, ensuring that various cell types develop at the right time. They studied two mutant strains of worms, lin-4 and lin-14, that displayed defects in the timing of activation of genetic programs during development. The laureates wanted to identify the mutated genes and understand their function. Ambros had previously shown that the lin-4 gene appeared to be a negative regulator of the lin-14 gene. However, how the lin-14 activity was blocked was unknown. Ambros and Ruvkun were intrigued by these mutants and their potential relationship and set out to resolve these mysteries.

After his postdoctoral research, Victor Ambros analyzed the lin-4 mutant in his newly established laboratory at Harvard University. Methodical mapping allowed the cloning of the gene and led to an unexpected finding. The lin-4 gene produced an unusually short RNA molecule that lacked a code for protein production. These surprising results suggested that this small RNA from lin-4 was responsible for inhibiting lin-14. How might this work?

Here’s the announcement, which I always find exciting:

AND THE TWO CONTESTS:

1.) Guess who will win the other two Nobel Prizes in science: Physics and Chemistry.  One guess per discipline, and the first person who guesses both winners gets one of my trade books, autographed per their choice (including cat drawings).

2.) Alternatively you can choose the other contest: Guess who will win these two prizes: Literature and Peace.  Same rules as above, and same prize.

You can guess in only one of these two competitions.

In previous years, people have failed miserably in these contests, but someday someone will win. . . .