Why did microRNA win the Nobel Prize?

In October 2024, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Victor Ambros (University of Massachusetts) and Gary Ruvkun (Harvard Medical School) 'for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.' The Nobel Committee recognized that microRNA represents a fundamentally new principle of gene regulation that was completely unknown to science before 1993. Their work revealed that organisms — from simple worms to humans — use these tiny RNA molecules to fine-tune which genes are active in which cells and at which times. This discovery transformed our understanding of development, disease, and gene regulation. Over the 30 years since their discovery, miRNA research has generated more than 80,000 peer-reviewed papers. OncuraKit is built on this Nobel Prize-winning foundation.