A little over 50 years ago, a guy named Sydney Brenner introduced into the world is called a nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans. Brenner would win the prize in 2002 “for his discoveries in the genetic regulation of organ development and the program of cell death”, but the thing was almost more of a worm.
Hey C. elegans It was transparent, all types of highly specialized cells, easily manipulated, and quickly generated. It was the dream of all those who worked in genetics and for that reason it is not surprising two postdoctoral studentstwo of the continents And he became obsessed with her.
A story of obsession
Ambrose, 2008
Victor Ambrose and Gaius Ruvkun They met in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz (another Nobel Prize winner 2002) in the early 1980s, working on a problem that had plagued them for years: why some of those mutable worms sought aberrant structures, shapes and solutions.
For years, his work has focused on something as simple as exploring (and exploiting) various mutant forms of nematodes. But it was not. The problem puzzled them and they couldn’t find the key. For Both postdoctoral fellowships ended fruitlessly. and each one followed his own way.
Ambrose ended up at Harvard University and Ruvkun at Massachusetts General Hospital. They were close, but this did not seem so: each continued his own work on a problem which all thought was impossible to solve. Ambros discovered that there were some very short RNAs, but he didn’t know what they meant. Ruvkum, for his part, noted the moment when the genes were formed, but he did not understand what could move or prevent them.
On June 11, 1992, almost a decade after they started working, they met again; During that time they took what everyone had done.
Where the magic happened.
The great order of life
But to understand well what did they find?it is worth reviewing the problem they were working on. DNA is a kind of instruction manual that contains all the cells and processes in our body. The interesting thing is that each cell contains the same instruction manual, but each cell serves only that part. What ensures that only the correct types of genes are active in each cell?
that is the essential question that Ambros and Ruvkun were trying to answerbut it was devilishly difficult.
First of all, the fact that one of the elements of these genetic arrangements is much smaller than we could imagine. Since the 60s we knew about some proteins in special arrangements, but in the 80s we knew that these proteins were not enough.
I was found to be a microRNA
Ambros fragment and Ruvkun hole: Together they found that it was a completely unknown level of control. One thing that would be very important years later. But, as usual, no one pays much attention to them.
And not because it wasn’t interesting, but because most experts thought it was the most likely mechanism for the oddity of things. C. elegans It took Ruvkun’s laboratory nearly another decade to discover another case of microRNA, but this time in the most common gene in all living things.
There the situation arose: dozens of factory work began on it and in the following years we learned “abnormal regulation by microRNAs may contribute to cancer, and mutations in the gene expression of microRNAs have been found in humans, causing conditions such as congenital hearing loss and eye and skeletal disorders.”
Today, many great medical advances depend on his work. And they have a Nobel.
Image | NoObel Foundation
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