Harvard University geneticist Gary Rovkin to his longtime friend and now 2024 Nobel Prize A late-night phone call with Victor Ambrose, co-laureate in Physiology or Medicine, in which he recounted his groundbreaking discovery of genetic mutations is vividly remembered.
It was the early 1990s, when the two had known each other for over a decade The scientistwho were fascinated by an obscure species of roundworm, were exchanging data points at 11 p.m.
Gary Rovkin told AFP in a Boston suburb shortly after hearing the news of the Nobel prize: ‘It fits together like pieces of a puzzle.’
What the Nobel Prize-winning scientists discovered is a small genetic molecule, or microRNA, that acts as a key regulator of growth in animals and plants and could potentially cause many diseases in the future. may lead to breakthroughs in treatment.
The code of this molecule consists of just 22 ‘letters’ compared to the codes of genes found in normal proteins, but despite its small size the role of this molecular gatekeeper is very important.
‘They turn off the target gene,’ explains Gary Rovkin. It’s like astronomy starts with looking at the visible, and then later people think, ‘If we look with X-rays, we can see a lot.’
Mazad said: ‘We were looking at genetics at a much smaller scale than it had been seen before.’
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winners Victor Ambrose (left) and Gary Rovcon (right) are seen in this October 7, 2024 photo (Joseph Prezioso/AFP)
Gary Rovkin and Victor Ambrose’s discovery had its roots in early investigations of a millimeter-long roundworm called C. elegans.
The two scientists were surprised by an interaction between two genes in the worm that disrupts the worm’s normal development, causing it to either remain a juvenile or become an adult prematurely. is
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The genetic information in all living cells flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA) through a process called transcription and then to the cell’s machinery, which is given instructions on which proteins to make. .
Since the mid-20th century, it has been understood that through this process cells become specialized and perform different functions.
But Rovkin and Ambrose, who started out in the same lab before moving to different institutions, discovered a fundamentally new way to regulate gene activity through microRNAs, called transcription factors. The latter controls gene expression.
They published their findings in Papers in 1993, but the discovery was initially dismissed as apparently unrelated to mammals.
Rovkin says: ‘We were considered an oddity in the world of developmental biology.’
He had absolutely no idea that his work would be so much appreciated.
That all began to change in 2000, when Rovkin’s lab discovered another microRNA, present in living organisms, from roundworms to chickens and humans.
And then yesterday (October 7) the same discovery won him the Nobel Prize.
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