Stockholm: American scientists Victor Ambrose and Gary Rovkin, who discovered microRNA, have been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Medicine. The awarding committee judged that their discovery leads to the basic principles of gene functions.
The committee concluded that both provided fundamentally important knowledge of how living organisms form and function. Ambrose studied this while at Harvard University. He is currently a lecturer in natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Rovkin’s research was at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Rovkin is a professor of genetics.
They discovered ‘micro RNA’ while researching how different types of cells are formed. Last year, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for the discovery of mRNA or messenger RNA.
Last year, the award was shared by Kathleen Carrico and Drew Weisman, who paved the way for the development of an effective vaccine against Covid-19 by subjecting mRNA to nucleoside modification. The prize money is 10 lakh US dollars.
The Nobel Prize in Physics will be announced on Tuesday. The Nobel Peace Prize is on Friday. The awards will be presented on December 10, the death anniversary of Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel.
