UMass and Harvard Professors Receive Nobel Prize in Medicine
Victor Ambros, professor of natural science at the UMass Chan Medical School, and Gary Ruvkun, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, were presented with “the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine” on October 7 for their groundbreaking discovery of microRNA.
MicroRNA, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, is “a short segment of RNA that suppresses gene expression by binding to complementary segments of messenger RNA and interfering with the formation of proteins by translation.”
An article published by MassLive “Harvard, UMass professors win Nobel Prize in medicine for discovery of microRNA” explained how useful this discovery can be to future research in cancer and could even lead to a cure.
In the late 1980s, Ambros and Ruvkun studied the 1 mm roundworm C. elegans, a valuable model for tissue development due to its nerve and muscle cells similar to those in larger mammals.
Following their postdoctoral research, Ambros and Ruvkun parted ways and performed experiments in the greater Boston area. Ambros completed his research at Harvard University, where he analyzed a lin-4 mutant (“the failure to develop a vulva and the absence of a series of cuticular lateral ridges, known as alae,” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)), showing that the gene produced a short RNA molecule, lacking a code for protein production. The results suggested that the mutant lin-4 could inhibit another mutation, lin-14.
Ruvkun performed his research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. He showed that lin-4 does not inhibit the production of microRNA from lin-14; instead, inhibition occurs later in the gene mutation process, though a segment of lin-14 mRNA (messenger RNA) is necessary for this inhibition.
Collaborating again in the 1990s, Ambros and Ruvkun combined their experiments and discovered that the short lin-4 sequence matched complementary sequences in the lin-14 mRNA, leading to the discovery of a new principle of gene regulation involving a previously unknown type of RNA, microRNA.
An article written on the Nobel Prize Website stated that due to their joint efforts, Ambros and Ruvkun discovered that there is a “completely new principle of gene regulation that turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. It is now known that the human genome codes for over one thousand microRNAs.”
The final result of their experiment revealed that there is another dimension to gene regulation important in helping organisms develop and function ultimately paving the way for advancements in medical research.
