The cellular components that turn DNA directions into a body’s building blocks are akin to pieces of a Swiss watch: tiny, delicate, specialized — and complicated. If any part is missing or broken, the watch stops working.
The scientists who received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine discovered and characterized a component of that “watch” that no one previously understood — microRNA. Prior to its discovery by the laureates Victor Ambros of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester and Gary Ruvkun of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, scientists had an incomplete understanding of the process that controls how cells make proteins.
What Is MicroRNA?
They knew that DNA contains the “instructions” in the chemical equivalent of a computer code. They also knew that messenger RNA (mRNA) carries those instructions to the cell’s “protein factory” called the ribosome. But they didn’t understand when, why, or how that process could be interrupted.
