The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine was awarded to American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvken for their work on microRNA, BBC reported.
Their findings help explain how complex life arose on Earth and how the human body is made up of a wide variety of different tissues.
MicroRNAs affect how genes - the "instructions" for life - are controlled inside organisms, including us.
The winners share a prize fund worth SEK 11 million (£810,000).
Every cell in the human body contains the same raw genetic information locked in our DNA.
But even though they start with identical genetic information, the cells of the human body are extremely different in form and function.
The electrical impulses of nerve cells differ from the rhythmic beating of heart cells. The metabolic powerhouse that is the liver cell is different from the kidney cell that filters urea from the blood. The light-sensing abilities of cells in the retina are different to the abilities of white blood cells, which produce antibodies to fight infection.
So much diversity can arise from the same starting material because of gene expression.
American scientists were the first to discover microRNAs and how they exert control over how genes are expressed differently in different tissues.
The winners of the prizes for medicine and physiology are chosen by the Nobel Assembly of the Swedish Karolinska Institute.
„Their ground-breaking discovery revealed an entirely new principle of gene regulation that has proven essential to multicellular organisms, including humans. "The human genome is now known to encode over a thousand microRNAs," the institute said.
Without the ability to control gene expression, every cell in an organism would be identical, so microRNAs help the evolution of complex life forms.
Abnormal regulation by microRNAs may contribute to cancer and certain conditions, including congenital hearing loss and bone disorders.
A serious example is the DICER1 syndrome, which leads to cancer in various tissues and is caused by mutations that affect microRNAs.
The two scientists conducted their research on the nematode worm - C. elegans
They are experimenting with a mutant form of the worm that fails to develop certain types of cells.
And they end up concentrating on small pieces of genetic material, or microRNAs, that are essential for the worms' development.
Our cells make a copy called messenger RNA or simply mRNA. It exits the cell's nucleus and instructs the cell's protein factories to start producing a specific protein. But microRNAs get in the way by sticking to the messenger RNA and stopping it from working.
Essentially, the microRNA prevented the gene from being expressed in the cell.
Further work shows that this is not a process unique to worms, but is a fundamental component of life on Earth.
Prof. Janos Heller of Dublin City University said he was “delighted“ to hear that the prize went to Prof. Ambros and Ruvkan.
„Their pioneering work in gene regulation by microRNAs paved the way for groundbreaking research into new therapies for severe diseases like epilepsy, but also opened our eyes to the wonderful machinery that tightly controls what happens in our cells.“< /p>
Here are the laureates in the category in recent years:
2023 – Katalin Carrico and Drew Weissman for developing the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines
2022 – Svante Paabo for his work on human evolution.
2021 – David Julius and Ardem Pataputian for their work on how the body senses touch and temperature.
2020 - Michael Haughton, Harvey Alter and Charles Rice for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus.
2019 - Sir Peter Ratcliffe, William Kaelin and Greg Semenza for discovering how cells sense and adapt to oxygen levels.
2018 – James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo - for discovering how to fight cancer using the body's immune system.
2017 – Jeffrey Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael Young - for unraveling how bodies maintain a circadian rhythm or body clock.
2016 - Yoshinori Ohsumi - for discovering how cells stay healthy by recycling waste.