The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to two researchers who used roundworms in their discovery of microRNAs, which are crucial to regulating the activity of genes in the body.
Victor Ambros, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (depicted left), and Gary Ruvkun, at Massachusetts General Hospital (right), both USA, won for this fundamental discovery, which is now known to occur in all multicellular organisms including humans.
While all cells contain the same genes, they can have very different characteristics – these different cell types occur because the activity of each gene is regulated so that only certain genes are active in the cell. Prior to Ambros and Ruvkun’s work, which began in the early 1990s, it was thought that the only way these genes could be turned on or off was by specific proteins binding to the genes.
The pair found that there were in fact short RNA molecules (microRNAs) that could also turn off genes.
By studying roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans) with gene mutations that prevented them from developing properly, the researchers identified two genes that highlighted this for the first time.
The activity of microRNAs was then later corroborated in other animal studies, for example in mice.
MicroRNAs could also one day be useful as medicines, because when gene regulation by microRNAs goes wrong, it can contribute to conditions such as cancer and brain disorders.
Olle Kämpe, a Nobel committee member at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, said: “They were looking at two worms that looked a bit funny and decided to understand why. And then they discovered an entirely new mechanism for gene regulation. I think that’s beautiful.”
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