Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun win Nobel Prize in medicine for microRNA discovery

The rest of the 2024 Nobel Prizes will be awarded throughout the week.

Transcript

00:00The Nobel Prize in Medicine is awarded to two Americans, Victor Ambrose and Gary Rufkin,

00:06for their discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated.

00:13Thomas Perelman, Secretary of the Nobel Assembly, announced the award on Monday in Stockholm.

00:18According to the Assembly, their discovery is fundamentally important for how organisms

00:22develop and function.

00:23MicroRNA is a small molecule found in cells that helps regulate gene expression.

00:28It binds to messenger RNA to either block its translation into proteins or cause its

00:32breakdown, controlling which proteins are made in the cell.

00:35The rest of the 2024 prizes will be awarded throughout the week.

00:40The Nobel Prizes were created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896, and it comes

00:46with a cash award of nearly one million euros.

00:49The Laureates will receive their awards at a ceremony on December 10, the anniversary

00:53of Nobel's death.