--Nobel Prize in medicine goes to two American biologists for work on the discovery of microRNA

By Christian Edwards and Katie Hunt, CNN

The 2024 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a molecule that governs how cells in the body function.
2024 年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖授予美国科学家 Victor Ambros 和 Gary Ruvkun，以表彰他们在发现 microRNA 方面所做的工作，microRNA 是一种控制体内细胞功能方式的分子。

Their research revealed how genes, which contain the instruction manual for life, give rise to different types of cells within the human body, a process known as gene regulation.
他们的研究揭示了包含生命指导手册的基因如何在人体内产生不同类型的细胞，这一过程称为基因调控。

The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor, seen as the pinnacle of scientific achievement, in Sweden on Monday. It praised the “groundbreaking discovery,” which the committee said “revealed an entirely new dimension to gene regulation.”
诺贝尔奖委员会周一在瑞典宣布了这一享有盛誉的荣誉，该荣誉被视为科学成就的巅峰之作。它赞扬了这一“开创性的发现”，该委员会称其“揭示了基因调控的一个全新的维度”。

The discovery of gene regulation by microRNA – a family of molecules that helps cells control the sort of proteins they make that has been at work for hundreds of millions of years – was the result of decades of work by Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and Ruvkun, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.
microRNA（一个帮助细胞控制它们制造的蛋白质的分子家族，已经工作了数亿年）发现基因调控是马萨诸塞大学医学院自然科学教授 Ambros 和哈佛医学院遗传学教授 Ruvkun 数十年努力的结果。

“Their discovery… is of fundamental importance to understand how cells work, and thus how organisms develop,” said Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University. “This finding was groundbreaking, and has affected more or less all fields of biology and medicine,” he told CNN via email.
“他们的发现......对于了解细胞如何工作以及生物体如何发育至关重要，“斯德哥尔摩大学进化基因组学教授 Love Dalén 说。“这一发现是开创性的，或多或少影响了生物学和医学的所有领域，”他通过电子邮件告诉 CNN。

How cells do different things
细胞如何做不同的事情

“The information stored within our chromosomes can be likened to an instruction manual for all cells in our body. Every cell contains the same chromosomes, so every cell contains exactly the same set of genes and exactly the same set of instructions,” the committee said in a statement, detailing the duo’s work.
“存储在我们染色体中的信息可以比作我们体内所有细胞的说明手册。每个细胞都包含相同的染色体，因此每个细胞都包含完全相同的基因集和完全相同的指令集，“该委员会在一份声明中说，详细介绍了两人的工作。

And yet, different cell types – such as muscle and nerve cells – have different characteristics. The two biologists have spent their careers investigating how these differences arise.
然而，不同的细胞类型（例如肌肉细胞和神经细胞）具有不同的特征。这两位生物学家在他们的职业生涯中一直在研究这些差异是如何产生的。

“The answer lies in gene regulation, which allows each cell to select only the relevant instructions. This ensures that only the correct set of genes is active in each cell type,” the committee said.
“答案在于基因调控，它允许每个细胞只选择相关的指令。这确保了只有正确的基因集在每种细胞类型中是活跃的，“该委员会说。

Gene regulation by microRNA has aided the evolution of increasingly complex organisms. If gene regulation goes awry, it can lead to cancer and other conditions found in humans and other animals, like hearing loss and skeletal disorders.
microRNA 的基因调控有助于日益复杂的生物体的进化。如果基因调控出错，可能会导致癌症和人类和其他动物身上发现的其他疾病，如听力损失和骨骼疾病。

“MicroRNAs are very much implicated in cancer. There is ongoing research to make treatments or utilize micro RNAs – mimic microRNA or block microRNA – to treat cancer. There’s some technical hurdles in that so there’s not been any drugs yet,” said Thomas Perlmann, secretary-general of the Nobel Assembly.
“MicroRNA 与癌症密切相关。正在进行研究以制造治疗方法或利用 micro RNA（模拟 microRNA 或阻断 microRNA）来治疗癌症。这其中有一些技术障碍，所以还没有任何药物，“诺贝尔大会秘书长托马斯·珀尔曼 （Thomas Perlmann） 说。

“We’re awarding this because of its fundamental importance for the basic understanding of physiology. We know historically that these big discoveries, they translate into clinical improvements but it takes time,” he told CNN.
“我们授予这个奖项是因为它对生理学的基本理解具有根本重要性。我们从历史上知道，这些重大发现会转化为临床改善，但这需要时间，“他告诉 CNN。

From ‘oddity’ to fundamental discovery
从“奇特”到根本性的发现

In their early work, the pair studied the genetic make-up of a tiny 1 millimeter-long roundworm, C. elegans. Despite its small size, this worm possesses many specialized cell types, such as nerve and muscle cells, that are also found in larger, more complex animals, making it a useful model for investigating how tissues develop and mature in multicellular organisms.
在他们的早期工作中，这对夫妇研究了一种 1 毫米长的微小蛔虫 C. elegans 的基因组成。尽管体积小，但这种蠕虫拥有许多特殊的细胞类型，例如神经细胞和肌肉细胞，这些细胞类型也存在于更大、更复杂的动物中，使其成为研究多细胞生物中组织如何发育和成熟的有用模型。

“The first micro RNA was discovered by Victor Ambros in 1993 but it was thought to be an oddity, peculiar to a small worm, C. elegans, for more than seven years,” said Olle Kämpe, a professor in endocrinology at the Karolinksa Institutet and vice chair of the Nobel medicine committee.
“第一个微 RNA 是由 Victor Ambros 于 1993 年发现的，但七年多来，人们一直认为它是一种奇怪的东西，是小蠕虫秀丽隐杆线虫所特有的，”卡罗林卡研究所内分泌学教授、诺贝尔医学委员会副主席奥勒·坎普 （Olle Kämpe） 说。

That 1993 discovery was met by “deafening silence” and initially thought irrelevant to humans, the committee said, until Ruvkun published his discovery of another microRNA, which is now known to be present throughout the animal kingdom.
该委员会表示，1993 年的这一发现遭遇了“震耳欲聋的沉默”，最初被认为与人类无关，直到 Ruvkun 发表了他发现的另一种 microRNA，现在已知这种 microRNA 存在于整个动物王国中。

“Then the field exploded,” said Kämpe. “Now, more than tens of thousands of microRNAs have been identified in different organisms.”
“然后，田地爆炸了，”Kämpe 说。“现在，已经在不同的生物体中鉴定出数以万计的 microRNA。”

Nobel recognition for Ambros and Ruvkun has been anticipated by many for years, said David Pendlebury, head of research analysis at Clarivate’s Institute for Scientific Information.
多年来，许多人一直期待着安布罗斯和鲁夫昆获得诺贝尔奖，科睿唯安科学信息研究所（Clarivate's Institute for Scientific Information）的研究分析主管大卫·彭德尔伯里（David Pendlebury）说。

“They (microRNAs) offer potential diagnostic and therapeutic opportunities in treating cancer and other diseases. Clinical trials are underway to utilize microRNA profiling for patient prognosis and clinical response,” Pendlebury told CNN.
“它们 （microRNA） 为治疗癌症和其他疾病提供了潜在的诊断和治疗机会。正在进行临床试验，以利用 microRNA 分析来评估患者的预后和临床反应，“Pendlebury 告诉 CNN。

Janosch Heller, an assistant professor in biomedical sciences at Dublin City University, said that the work “opened our eyes to the wonderful machinery that is tightly controlling what is happening in our cells.”
都柏林城市大学（Dublin City University）生物医学科学助理教授亚诺施·海勒（Janosch Heller）说，这项工作“让我们看到了紧密控制我们细胞中发生的事情的奇妙机制”。

The discovery of microRNA also helps explain why many organisms have a similar number of genes despite displaying varying levels of complexity, said Joshua Rosenthal, a senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, part of the University of Chicago.
芝加哥大学（University of Chicago）下属海洋生物实验室（Marine Biological Laboratory）的高级科学家约书亚·罗森塔尔（Joshua Rosenthal）说，microRNA的发现还有助于解释为什么许多生物体的基因数量相似，尽管它们表现出不同程度的复杂性。

“Over the past two decades we’ve sequenced the entire genomes of an incredibly wide variety of organisms. One surprising result is that the number of genes required to encode a tiny nematode worm, a fish and a human being is about the same. If that’s the case, then how is complexity generated?” he told CNN.
“在过去的二十年里，我们已经对种类繁多的生物体的整个基因组进行了测序。一个令人惊讶的结果是，编码一条微小的线虫、一条鱼和一个人所需的基因数量大致相同。如果是这样的话，那么复杂性是如何产生的？

“The answer appears to be in the sophisticated ways that the information within these genes, like a light, can be turned on, off and dimmed. We now know that microRNAs, once discarded by scientists as a contaminant getting in the way of studying ‘more important’ RNAs, are key components for regulating genes in virtually every cell in every tissue in every plant and animal,” Rosenthal added.
“答案似乎在于这些基因中的信息（如灯）可以打开、关闭和变暗的复杂方式。我们现在知道，microRNA 曾经被科学家作为污染物丢弃，阻碍了研究'更重要'的 RNA，它是调节每个植物和动物每个组织中几乎每个细胞中基因的关键组成部分，“罗森塔尔补充道。

Last year, the prize was awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their work on MRNA vaccines, a crucial tool in curtailing the spread of Covid-19.
去年，该奖项授予 Katalin Karikó 和 Drew Weissman，以表彰他们在 mRNA 疫苗方面的工作，mRNA 疫苗是遏制 Covid-19 传播的重要工具。

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million).
该奖品的现金奖励为 1100 万瑞典克朗（100 万美元）。