The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun “for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.”

In 1993, they published unexpected findings describing a new level of gene regulation, which turned out to be highly significant and conserved throughout evolution. Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun discovered microRNA, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation. Their groundbreaking discovery in the small worm C. elegans revealed a completely new principle of gene regulation. This turned out to be essential for multicellular organisms, including humans. MicroRNAs are proving to be fundamentally important for how organisms develop and function.

Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2024

Scientific background: For the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation