The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was jointly awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun “for discovering microRNAs and their role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.”
This is stated in a press release on the Nobel Prize website.
Researchers Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun discovered microRNAs, a new class of tiny RNA molecules that play a crucial role in gene regulation. They discovered microRNAs in the small worm C. elegans. This revolutionary discovery showed an entirely new principle of gene regulation essential for multicellular organisms, including humans.
It is now known that microRNAs are fundamentally important for the development and functioning of organisms.