The 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for... (drumroll)...
The two discovered micro-RNA, a tiny substance inside our cells that controls the expression of genes. These US scientists made their first micro-RNA discoveries in 1993, on the long end of delayed recognition for a Nobel Prize.
Micro RNA is being studied for its role in cancer, kidney disease, and heart disease, but the chair of the Nobel Committee admitted, “there are no very clear applications available yet…”
How does this prize fulfill the last will and testament of Alfred Nobel, which stated the prize should go “to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind”?
Admittedly the Nobel Committee has a big job. In the past they’ve recognized some hard-working researchers who’ve made tangible contributions to medicine, but also some Nazi scientists, criminals, and cheaters.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Nobel Prize in Medicine is just released, the final in the Boneheads & Brainiacs series on the history of the first century of the prizes.
It examines some of the head-scratching awards, like the one to Egas Moniz for lobotomy, and then there’s Nials Jerne, the guy who made no discovery.
Read about peculiar characters who’ve won, including the first winner Emil von Behring who spent some time in an asylum, and Ramon y Cajal who wrote science fiction.
Meet some outstanding war heroes, such as Jacques Monod who worked in the French Resistance; and many world class humanitarians, my favorite being Rita Levi-Montalcini and Gunter Blobel.
Get the series and discover your favorites. These books make great Christmas gifts!
*Geek section: more on micro-RNA
Our genes, assembled as DNA, reside in the cell nucleus. When DNA gets activated to unwind, messenger RNA comes along to copy a gene and then exits the nucleus into the cell fluid. The code it copies carries the instructions to make proteins.
What the 2025 Nobel Prize winners discovered is another level of gene regulation, in the form of micro-RNA. The tiny micro-RNA clamps onto messenger RNA and prevents it from making protein.
The micro-RNA either trashes it or stores it for future protein production when needed.