In a climate where so much time and energy is spent trying to tackle human disease, Monday’s Nobel Prize in the category of physiology or medicine is a welcome reminder of the value of pursuing research that scratches a scientific itch. Sometimes, that work might lead to a new understanding of human biology.
"Curiosity research is very important,” said Olle Kampe, member of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, in announcing the prize to Victor Ambros, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Gary Ruvkun, at Harvard Medical School, for discovering so-called microRNA. MicroRNA is one of a handful of biological systems that carefully orchestrate when, where and how intensely DNA should operate.
"They were looking at two worms that looked a bit funny and decided to understand why. And then they discovered an entirely new mechanism for gene regulation. I think that’s beautiful,” Kampe said.
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