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Mahesh

08/10/24 10:03 AM IST

Nobel Prize for Medicine

In News
  • The Nobel Prize for Medicine this year has been awarded to scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their discovery of microRNA — tiny molecules which play a crucial role in how genes function.
Discovery of microRNA
  • In the late 1980s, Ambros and Ruvkun were working under Nobel Prize-winning researcher Robert Horvitz, studying a tiny roundworm called C. elegans.
  • Despite being just 1 millimetre long, this worm had many of the same cell types found in larger animals, making it an ideal candidate for understanding how tissues develop.
  • Ambros and Ruvkun were particularly interested in two genes in these worms: lin-4 and lin-14.
  • These genes played important roles in determining when different cells matured.
  • The scientists’ curiosity was piqued when they noticed that certain mutant worms had problems with this timing.
  • Ambros discovered that lin-4 seemed to inhibit lin-14, but the scientific process behind this was unclear.
  • After setting up his lab at Harvard, Ambros began further investigating the lin-4 gene.
  • To his surprise, he found that lin-4 produced a tiny RNA molecule that did not code for proteins like most genes do. Instead, this “micro” RNA simply blocked the activity of lin-14.
  • This discovery revealed a fascinating new way in which genes could be controlled through tiny RNA molecules now called microRNAs.
  • Initially published in 1993, the discovery got little notice as most scientists believed that this peculiar process was limited to C. elegans.
MicroRNA
  • MicroRNA are molecules that help cells control their protein production.
  • The proteins that cells produce play vital roles in almost all biological processes of living organisms.
  • In human bodies, for example, the protein haemoglobin transports oxygen, insulin helps absorption of glucose from blood, etc.
  • Thus, anything that impacts protein production can have consequences for human health.
  • MicroRNA works by binding with another type of molecule called messenger RNA (mRNA).
  • MicroRNA controls gene expression mainly by binding with messenger RNA (mRNA) in the cell cytoplasm.
  • Instead of being translated quickly into a protein, the marked mRNA will be either destroyed and its components recycled, or it will be preserved and translated later.”
Significance of the discovery
  •  If “gene regulation goes awry, it can lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, or autoimmunity.
  • Therefore, understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal for many decades.”
  • Gene regulation by microRNA, first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun, has been at work for hundreds of millions of years
  • 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.
Victor & Ruvkun
  • Ambros, 70, is the Silverman Professor of Natural Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
  • He has a PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he also did postdoctoral research from 1979-1985.
  • Ruvkun, 72, is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.
  • He has a PhD from Harvard University. He too was a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from 1982-1985.
Source- Indian Express

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