2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun. The prize was announced by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm on 7 October 2024.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Victor Ambros was born in 1953 in Hanover, the United States, and is affiliated with UMass Chan Medical School, Worcester. Gary Ruvkun was born in 1952 in Berkeley, the United States, and is affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and Harvard Medical School, Boston.

Why it matters

MicroRNAs are tiny molecules that control how genes are used in the body. Their discovery in a tiny worm revealed a whole new layer of gene regulation.

The prize

The prize is worth 11 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.