Gary Ruvkun is used to getting awards — but for him, the Nobel Prize is in a class of its own.
“I’ve won 10 to 20 awards in the last 20 years, but never had a press conference with cameras and nothing like this,” Ruvkun, who along with Victor Ambros received the 2024 award in medicine or physiology on Monday, said at a press conference at Massachusetts General Hospital. “It’s a completely different world.”
The pair of scientists received the Nobel Prize for their discovery of microRNA, a small kind of RNA molecule that helps cells across the body differentiate themselves and perform different functions with the same genetic code. Scientists have since built on the duo’s work, published in 1993, to study cancer treatments, diabetes, and metabolism.
The morning of the announcement, STAT sat down with Ruvkun, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and investigator at MGH, to discuss the future of microRNA and how researchers are credited with awards. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
