Who are Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, winners of 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm declared that Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2024 “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.”
The Nobel Prize is a prestigious international award managed by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden, and funded by the estate of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor and entrepreneur. Individuals or organizations receiving this honour are referred to as Nobel Prize laureates.
– According to the official press release, this year’s Nobel Prize Committee honored Ambros and Ruvkun for their discovery of a key principle controlling gene activity. The information in our chromosomes can be compared to a guidebook for all cells. Every cell contains the same chromosomes, meaning s they all have the same set of genes and instructions.
– Despite having identical genetic material, different types of cells, like muscle and nerve cells, have unique characteristics. These differences occur because of gene regulation, which allows cells to select only the instructions they need, ensuring the right genes are active in each cell type.
– Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were researching how different types of cells develop when they identified microRNA, a class of small RNA molecules crucial to gene regulation.
– Their discovery introduced a new concept in gene regulation, essential for the functioning of multicellular organisms, including humans.
– It is now known that the human genome encodes over a thousand microRNAs. This unexpected finding revealed a new aspect of gene regulation, with microRNAs playing a vital role in how organisms grow and function.
Victor R. Ambros, an American developmental biologist, was born in 1953 in Hanover, New Hampshire. He is credited with discovering the first microRNA (miRNA) and is currently a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Ambros grew up in Vermont and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1975. His graduate research (1976-1979) at MIT, under David Baltimore, focused on the poliovirus genome.
As a postdoctorate in H. Robert Horvitz’s lab at MIT, Ambros began studying the genetic pathways related to developmental timing in C. elegans. He continued his research on developmental timing while on the faculty at Harvard, Dartmouth, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
In 1993, Ambros’ lab discovered the first microRNA, produced by the lin-4 gene in C. elegans, which shaped his ongoing research on the role of microRNAs in development.
Gary Bruce Ruvkun, born in March 1952 in Berkeley, California, is an American molecular biologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.
He discovered how lin-4, the first microRNA (miRNA) identified by Victor Ambros, regulates messenger RNA translation through imperfect base-pairing with its targets. Ruvkun also discovered the second miRNA, let-7, and found that it is conserved across animal species, including humans.
He earned his undergraduate degree in 1973 from the University of California, Berkeley, and his PhD in biophysics from Harvard University in 1982, where he studied bacterial nitrogen fixation genes under Frederick M. Ausubel.
His postdoctoral work was conducted at MIT with Robert Horvitz and at Harvard with Walter Gilbert. Ruvkun has been a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School since 1985, following his position as a Junior Fellow at Harvard’s Society of Fellows (1982-1985).
His major research areas include microRNA and RNA interference mechanisms, genetic analysis of microbiome interactions, neuroendocrine control of immunity, detoxification, and aging, as well as the study of life on other planets.