Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun Named 2024 Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine

Rockville, Md. (Oct. 7, 2024)—The American Physiological Society (APS) congratulates Victor Ambros, PhD, and Gary Ruvkun, PhD, the 2024 recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This highest honor in modern science recognizes the discovery of microRNA, tiny molecules that govern how gene activity is regulated.  

“Their surprising discovery revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function,” the Nobel Assembly wrote in a statement.

Ambros is the Silverman Chair in Natural Sciences and a professor of molecular medicine at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. He earned his undergraduate degree and PhD and completed postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Ambros’ lab discovered the first microRNA, called lin-4, in the worm species C. elegans in 1993 and subsequently identified multiple microRNAs in worms, flies and people.

Ruvkun is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and an investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and his PhD from Harvard University. Ruvkun’s research in the early 1990s showed that certain mutations in a non-protein-coding portion of a messenger RNA (called lin-14) allowed it to ignore the lin-4 “stop” signals but still keep working. His lab discovered the second microRNA, called let-7, in C. elegans in 2000.

These discoveries “paved the way for a broader understanding of RNA biology, and the subsequent discovery of a whole range of mechanisms of post-transcriptional gene regulation that are now recognized as an essential biological principle by which organisms realize a diverse set of responses to different stimuli in a cell-specific manner,” APS Publications Committee Chair Wolfgang Kübler, PhD, FAPS, said in a statement. “Notably, this prize aligns with recent Nobel awards that have highlighted the important role of RNAs as biological regulators, science tools and therapeutic principles over the past years, including the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.”

“MicroRNAs help us to understand a whole variety of disease conditions in which disease-causing proteins are inappropriately expressed by cells, including cancer, in the hope that they will become targets for future therapies and cures,” APS Chief Science Advisor Dennis Brown, PhD, FAPS, added.

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