Newton Centre resident Gary Ruvkun was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize for Medicine on Monday for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation. The Nobel Committee honored Ruvkun and Victor Ambros for their discovery of a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated.
Ruvkun was at home Monday morning, fielding calls from across the world, with his wife of 36 years, Natasha Stalle, and their daughter, Victoria, who is in her last year of medical school at Dartmouth College, training to be a surgeon. He had already had a Facetime call with Ambros, who is in Holden, MA, to celebrate their award.
Ruvkun explained that microRNA “regulates other genes—it is the smallest bit of nucleic acid that has enough information to find a DNA gene. Think of it as bits of information. Every base is four different letters. To find something in a DNA genome, you need about 20—so they are just the right size.”
Natasha, an art historian, summarized Gary’s discovery of microRNA thus: “These were the tiniest genes no one knew existed — and it turns out there is this whole world of the tiniest genes — that go all the way across philogyny, including in humans — which turns out to be involved in every healthy and disease process. So they are ubiquitous, but they are fundamentally important, for heart and cancer, for all kinds of other things, but healthy things too like development.”
Events are being planned at UMASS Medical School and Mass General Hospital to honor the award winners.
