The 2024 Nobel Prize for Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun. These two American scientists were honoured for “the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation”.
About MicroRNA
- MicroRNA are molecules that help cells control their protein production. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then on to the cellular machinery for protein production.
- There, mRNAs are translated so that proteins are made according to the genetic instructions stored in DNA.
- Since the mid-20th century, several of the most fundamental scientific discoveries have explained how these processes work.
- Our organs and tissues consist of many different cell types, all with identical genetic information stored in their DNA. However, these different cells express unique sets of proteins. It is due to the precise regulation of gene activity so that only the correct set of genes is active in each specific cell type.
- This enables, for example, muscle cells, intestinal cells, and different types of nerve cells to perform their specialized functions.
- In addition, gene activity must be continually fine-tuned to adapt cellular functions to changing conditions in our bodies and environment.
- 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.
- 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.
