The winners of the competition were announced in Stockholm Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology 2024. They are two Americans, Victor Ambros And Gary Ruvkun. They received their recognition for the discovery of microRNA.
Apparently this term says little, but we are increasingly realizing the importance of these elements. In the future, microRNAs may help us to treat and prevent various pathologiesstarting from tumors and reaching diabetes.
But what are microRNAs? These are small nucleotide polymers that intercept the products of the mutated genes. For this reason they could become a target for treatments, considering that carcinogens (thinking of tumors) can act on them, neutralizing them. And therefore favor the development of the tumor.
What happens in cells
Let’s try to travel in the world of the ultrasmall. And we try to discover how the studies of Ambrose and Ruykun are important, so much so that they received the Nobel Prize, more than thirty years after their first observation. To understand, you need to study how messages pass through cells so that they continue to reproduce in the correct way, producing the proteins that are needed. Each particular cell has precise indications in this sense, to carry out specific functions. For this reason, the cells of the lung continue to duplicate and carry out their functions correctly when we are well, those of the intestine do the same and so on.
As the site explains nobelprize.org, This year’s Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then to the cellular machinery for the production of proteins. There, mRNAs are translated so that proteins are made according to genetic instructions stored in DNA. But there must be precise regulation for each cell. AND gene activity it must be continually fine-tuned to adapt cellular functions to changing conditions in our body and environment. If gene regulation goes wrongcan lead to serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes or whatever. Therefore, understanding the regulation of gene activity has been an important goal for many decades.
What does the Nobel search change?
In the 1960s, it was shown that specialized proteins, known as transcription factors, can bind to specific regions of DNA and control the flow of genetic information by determining which mRNAs are produced. Since then, they have been identified thousands of transcription factors and for a long time it was believed that the fundamental principles of gene regulation had been solved. And it is at this point that the observations on microRNAs appear: the two scholars have identified new regulatory mechanismsfundamental for well-being. Thanks to these tools each cell is able to “choose” only the important instructions, activating the relevant genes case by case.
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun discovered microRNAs, one new class of tiny RNA molecules which play a crucial role in gene regulation. Their groundbreaking discovery revealed an entirely new principle of gene regulation that has proven essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. Now, after initial skepticism, it is known that the human genetic heritage encodes over a thousand microRNAs. Their surprising discovery revealed a completely new dimension of gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important to how organisms develop and function.
Guardian angels of cells
In the collective imagination, the guardian angel watches us, follows us and protects us. In the ultra-small world, there are also human cells real biological guardian angels. And these are precisely the microRNAs. It is they who, if we are exposed to carcinogens such as cigarette smoke, intercept the products of the mutated genes capable of inducing the development of the tumor and neutralize them.
This year’s Nobel Prize honors two scientists for their discovery of a fundamental principle that governs how gene activity is regulated. All this, starting from studies on a small 1 millimeter long worm, Caenorhabditis elegans, which has specialized cells, for example nerve and muscle cells. Then, after initial skepticism, at the beginning of this millennium Ruvkun’s research group published the discovery of another microRNA, encoded by the let-7 gene. Then the science chase began and today we know over a thousand genes for different microRNAs in humans.
Today we know that, for example for lung cancer in smokers (but this is not the only application of research) microRNAs could become real tailor-made drugs. Carcinogens, such as cigarette smoking, induce serious damage to the DNA and genes that control the development of cancer after just 1 month of exposure. The development of the disease would therefore be very rapid. But nature has endowed our organism with powerful guardian angels of our DNA and our healthmicroRNAs precisely. These small nucleotide polymers intercept the products of mutated genes that induce the development of cancer by neutralizing them. This is why we focus on one research started on a small wormand destined to bring great results for human beings.
